Happy Holidays!

Welp, it has literally been a year since I blogged here :) This blog is becoming more of the "Christmas letter blog" haha. Hopefully with me graduating I will be better at updating...(famous last words? "I will have more time when...")

Anyways, here is our card this year. Unless you are immediate family, you probably didn't get a real version--sorry :( digital will have to do this year. Christmas cards can be expensive!

Special thanks to Tanner, Scotty's cousin who took our awesome picture on the front of the card. (Check out his facebook page here.) Isn't the flag the most perfect little background flourish ever? It was Scotty's idea. He gets all the credit for that. I especially love that the pic has our mountains in the background that both of us grew up with. 

On the back of the card: 

• I am finally graduating this December. Finally! I finish my student teaching on December 9th and I am done! I walked in August because they don't do ceremonies in Winter.
  
• Ellie still loves dock diving...she got her personal best in the last competition (16'). We found a pretty kickin' park in PC where we can practice. When it is warm enough outside we end up making that drive almost once a week...we love the PC park that much.
  
• As much as she loves the water, she doesn't look as thrilled about that fish as Scotty does! Scotty has been doing a lot of outdoors-y stuff with his major (go figure). He was mad his beard from the summer didn't make it on to the car. Apparently the pics on the card are only "pre-beard" pictures....
  
• When we went to Disneyland earlier in the year we camped in Malibu on our way. That last picture is us on the beach in Malibu. It was beautiful! It was a lot of fun and we are probably going to be doing more beach camping from now on. Who knew?!

As much as I love teaching, I have a job at Ancestry.com that I am absolutely in love with. It is literally my job to do genealogy on a Mac....can it get much better than that? I submit that it cannot! Scotty should be graduating this next December (2015) and we will see next year when I write on this blog again what the future holds. Scotty has an 'assignment' but we are waiting for the possibility of another opportunity before we get too excited about anything. If you want more details about anything, just PM me on Facebook or text me. 

Merry Christmas from the Rodee family! 

Happy Holidays!

Another year gone by!  Crazy, isn't it?  Scotty and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary this last October. It amazes us that it has already been 3 years, but we have done so much together in those 3 years that it feels like it has been more than that sometimes!

Ellie has yet to get over her "excessive shyness", so for now, we have decided to pull her from therapy dog training. As much as we try and socialize her, she is just too protective and timid for her own good.  She is very athletic, however, and we will definitely continue to take her to splash dog competitions. She loves the water (as long as it isn't a bath).

Scotty is working hard in school and should be contracting at the beginning of this year with the ROTC (that means we start getting paid by the air force to go to school! It isn't much, but its more than $0)! He is thoroughly enjoying his major where he has to go on camping trips and hiking trips and visit national monuments, etc. Sheesh. What a hard life ;)

Audra (me) will be graduating in exactly 1 year!  This winter semester is actually my last semester of classes, but then I have to wait until Fall to student teach and then graduate :)  there is finally a light at the end of this loooong dark tunnel I've been traveling through!

We all hope everybody has a fantastic holiday season!  We have almost survived finals. Almost. It is so close and yet so far still.

Merry Christmas!

Finally!

This post has been 3 years in the making, and boy, it has been a LONG 3 years!

Scotty has been wanting to be in the Air Force for as long as I can remember.  I knew long before I married him that it was something he was going to work for--heck, he almost went to the Air Force Academy, but he was dating this girl:

 who he decided he really wanted to marry instead (AFA cadets can't get married until they graduate!  No thank you!).

Fortunately, getting married didn't mean that he couldn't pursue his dreams of following in Grandpa Rodee's footsteps:

UVU works with the ROTC at BYU, DET 855 to give their students the AFROTC experience.  Scotty joined up with the Air Force ROTC as soon as we learned of the opportunity and examined all the details.

Amidst a long journey that has included numerous major changes, getting orthodontic care approved, and emotional struggles about weather or not this would all be worth it, we have finally reached a milestone:

Wednesday morning (4/10/13), about 3 weeks (it almost felt like another 3 years) after we had expected to learn our fate, Scotty got a call from Laura (the DET 855 secretary), who set up an appointment for him to meet with Maj. Gregory about weather or not he would be selected for field training this summer.

The decision was delayed because of the Sequester that has been going on with the military, and it only added to my nerves.  I just kept thinking that with all the budget cuts our chances were going down by the minute.

Scotty called me and told me his meeting for Thursday was at 8:30 a.m. and I was basically a nervous wreck for the next 24 hours waiting to hear the fate of our future.  This meeting would determine if we go military via ROTC, if Scotty would enlist after graduation, or if we pursued a military career at all.

I had class at 8 a.m. that day, but I could not stop checking my phone for that text message telling me to come outside.

When it finally came, I was walking toward the ROTC building as Scotty walked out of it.  I wasn't wearing my glasses, and I couldn't tell if he was smiling, or trying not to cry.  He finally gave me a thumbs up and I almost passed out then and there from relief.

Apparently this is how the meeting went down:

Scotty enters Maj. Gregory's office:

Maj. Gregory: "So, Cadet Rodee, do you have any other options?"

Scotty: "Um, honestly, sir, if this didn't work out I had planned on enlisting..."

Maj. G: "Good.  I can write you a nice recommendation letter that will help you get to OTS (oficer training school) quickly; I could also get the Colonel to write you a good recommendation letter...and that's the route you would be taking, 

if you weren't going to field training this summer!"

When I heard the story I was a little frustrated for Scotty about the way it went down (I would have probably started crying if I were in the office), but the relationship he and Maj. Gregory is such that it was funny and it makes for a fun story afterwards. 

We FINALLY know where our future is going.  We FINALLY can tell people we are actually in the Air Force.  We FINALLY can start planning our future and have somewhat of an idea how it is going to play out.

My word for this moment is FINALLY.  All the anticipation and hard work is FINALLY paying off.

I have no idea when Scotty will be going to field training, but he will be gone for 4 weeks, and it should be after June 22, because of Chacy's wedding (Engagement video in case you haven't seen it yet):

Merry Christmas!

Hope your Christmas is AWESOME!!

Obi-Wan Kenobi XXXI

Once upon a time, I got mono.  I don't know if you have ever had mono, but I do NOT wish it upon anybody.  It really screws with your body as far as sleep, energy, weight, and everything else you can imagine it screwing with.   Lucky me, I got it in August, and was getting married in October.  YAY

Good news!  I survived the wedding and everybody else survived me.

It had been a few months, and I was technically on my way to recovery, but it was still near impossible for me to function if I didn't get like 10+ hours of sleep at night.  Being in school, this made getting to class one of the hardest tasks of my day.  On top of all the sleep I couldn't avoid, I was gaining a lot of weight.  With mono you aren't allowed to exercise because it might cause your spleen to rupture, and when you finally are allowed to exercise, you can't over-do it in fear of causing the mono to flare up again.  I was all depressed about gaining weight and not being able to exercise or wake up, so that in turn caused me to gain more weight (pretty sure I am an emotional eater...confirmed by this whole situation).  In short, I was depressed and tired and tired of gaining weight.

Along came Obi.

Our first family pic.  The night we picked him up :)

We didn't get Obi with the idea of him helping me heal, but boy did he help the process.  Scotty has to wake up and go to Air Force stuff in the early mornings, so when Obi was a puppy and potty training, guess who was the only one home to wake up and take him out?  Yup, it was me.  As hard as it was, it was the best thing that could have happened to me.  I had somebody else to wake up for and take care of and if I didn't do it, I would be cleaning up the mess he left me later.

First time @ the park.  mmmm Pinecones!

I was finally getting my sleep schedule back on track.  I hadn't been able to wake up before 8 a.m. (usually 10) in months.  Now I was regularly up around 6 and I can't tell you how grateful I was to start feeling normal again.

Obi holds a special place in my heart because of the emotional and physical support he gave me--without even knowing he did it.

Just enjoying the dog park!

Because he was such a LOVING dog and LOVED to meet new people, we decided to put Obi into training to become a service dog.  Intermountain Healthcare has a program called Intermountain Therapy Dogs and we wanted to get Scotty and Obi involved.  To prepare, we registered Obi with the national service dog registry and Scotty took him places with his service vest.  Obi did so well everywhere he went, that we knew without a doubt that he would do fantastic as a therapy dog.

 
We couldn't enter the program until Obi was 1 year old, however, and around that time Scotty had major surgery.  The nurse told us Obi could come visit Scotty in the hospital since he had a service vest.  Scotty literally cried with joy when the nurse gave us the O.K. to bring him in.

Jump ahead to more recent events:
We took Obi to get his booster shots at the end of September.  He was a bit "laggy" after he got them last time, so we figured the same would happen this time.

Well, he was laggy, but it lasted A LOT longer than it should have.  Like, DAYS.  We thought he was having a bad reaction, so we took him to the vet & the doc gave us some dog ibuprofen.  We took him to the vet after the pills were gone because he did good on the pills, but without them he didn't feel any better; this time they said he had too much bacterial overgrown in is stomach and they put him on antibiotic to kill the bad bacteria, and pro-biotics to make good bacteria.  A week went by and he didn't get any better, so we went back.  At this point he had lost about 10 pounds because he was not eating hardly anything.  They ran a whole bunch of tests on him: blood-work, the whole nine yards.  They couldn't figure out what was wrong.  All the tests were coming back good.  FINALLY (I don't know why it took so long to do this) they took an x-ray.  The vet told us she thought his diaphragm had ruptured and it was pushing all his organs against each other and out and that is what made it hard for him to eat.  She said we were lucky he was still alive and sent us immediately to an emergency vet in SLC for surgery.

The emergency vet did their own x-ray, because they had a better digital machine--they weren't convinced it was his diaphragm.  They came back and said it wasn't his diaphragm and they were calling their specialist in from Park City to do a cat scan.  After the cat scan we were told that Obi has lung cancer.  It had spread to both lungs and is extremely baffling, because he is only 1.5 years old.  The best explanation we have is that he was born with it.  For his age, it had to be something genetic.  We could spend lots of money to try and keep him alive, but with all the money in the world and a lot of suffering, his best prognosis was still only 6 months.

They told us we could take him home, but we needed to not wait very long to take care of the situation.  If we were to wait, he could go into respiratory arrest and suffocate.

Ellie could tell something was wrong. She would try and make him feel better all the time.

We took Obi to see Scotty's parents that night and everybody else came over the next morning to say goodbye.  Our appointment was set for 4:30 the afternoon of October 23, 2012.  He was really tired, and I think he was relieved that he finally got to lay down and sleep without feeling yucky or having trouble breathing. 

Our last family photo with Obi.  10/23/2012

Obi will never know the joy he brought into our lives or how much he helped me overcome the obstacles I was facing in my life.  He was the best dog I have ever known and will be missed every day.  I am glad he feels better now and can't wait to see him again. 

Snuggled up in the van camping & waiting for the rain to stop.

 The place that cremated his body gave us the following poem with his remains:

There is a bridge between heaven and earth. 

It is called the rainbow bridge because of its many colors, and our side of the bridge is a land of meadows hills and valleys if lush green grass to run, fresh clean ponds to swim and the most perfect of mountains to explore.

When a beloved pet dies, it goes to this beautiful place. 

There is always the best of food, clean water and the most perfect weather. 

The old and frail are young again, those that were maimed are made whole. 

They are all the best of friends and play all the day long with each other.
There is only one thing missing, their special person who loved them on earth. 

So they run and play happy as can be until the day comes when yours suddenly stops playing and looks up. 

Their nose twitches, their ears perk up, their eyes are staring, and suddenly runs from the group.
You have been seen, and you run to meet your special friend, you take him into into your arms and embrace. 

If you though your friend was happy to see you come home from a long day of work, imagine the greeting you will receive here. 

Your face is kissed again and again, tails are wagging buts are shaking with delight, and you look once more into the eyes of your beloved most loyal and trusted friend.
You then stand cross the rainbow bridge together, never to be separated again.

To end this post on a lighter note, I want to share some of the happy memories we had with Obi over this lat year.  He is such a goofball.

We threw Obi a birthday party when he turned 1.  Yes, I know it is a bit silly, but it was loads of fun!  Check out the star wars cupcakes!

Delicious cupcakes!  (Not for the dogs)

Birthday Buds!

Everybody in the car :)  We had many fun car trips!

Wrestling @ the park

Hiking in PG

Hi-5!  This pic has been used a lot by The Greenies Brand on facebook!

First outing with dad.  Fishing!

Obi finally figured out the sunroof :)

Look how well he posed for this pic!  SO pretty.

These two were a pretty legit pair.  Don't mess.

I found him like this when I came home from school one day.  What a spaz.

Shifty eyes.  10 points if you know what I think of when I see a shifty eyed dog!

One of my favorite things: He would get this BIG goofy smile on his face if you could scratch him right.

The Force will be with you.  Always.

EVERYBODY VOTE!!

EVERYBODY should go vote on facebook right now here:

Facebook Link

Go to the Vocal Performance category and vote for ROCKY RODEE!

He definitely has the best performance and deserves to win!!!

Song of the Week!

This was kind of the song of the week 2 weeks ago, but it is happening now. So deal with it :) 

If you saw this roaming around the social atmosphere, than you know how awesome it is. The song is catchy and fun, and the video broke a world record! The costume changes are fun and I'm surprised at how much I still like the song when it pops up on my playlist :) 

Enjoy! 

Eytan and The Embassy - Everything Changes

Song of the Week is Returning!

I am officially re-instating my beloved song of the week posts.

This week the song is: "Some Nights" by Fun.

**Disclaimer: This video is about war & soldiers.  It is graphic at times and this is the un-edited version.

I first heard it on the radio on my way home from work.  It has an awesome beat and interesting lyrics.  If you are sensitive, get the edited version; although unless you are really listening, you won't hear the "bad" word.  The band Fun is kind of "hippie-like" and really open with their feelings/actions.  You may recall their big hit "We are Young" (the song all about smoking pot).  Really "fun" (haha pun.) song, but probably not the best influence for young listeners if they can decipher what it means. 

It took me a while to find it on itunes, but I was excited when I did.  It is one of those songs that you just want to sing along with.

It kind of has that a capella-type/instrumental sound to it.  Not like a lot of stuff you hear these days with popular music.

I just watched the video and it strikes somewhat of a nerve because Scotty is working on becoming an Officer in the Air Force, and my bro in law is in the Army National Guard, and I have a lot of  military history in the family.  With the 4th of July approaching, however, I feel it is important to remember the things that have happened (like the civil war as semi-portrayed in the video) and how we can learn from them for the future.

Camera Giveaway!

I would love a chance to win this camera www.groopdealz.com is giving away, so here's my blog post about it!!!

Cooking

I really love to cook.

Not enough to study it in depth at school or anything---I'm not really into that whole cooking at a restaurant scene.  Especially if this guy (or others like him) are involved in the process:

too stressful methinks

Along with my love of cooking comes a love of cookbooks (an addiction I inherited from my mother).  I love finding good cookbooks and even more, I love finding good recipes in them.

I'm all about the recipes that aren't too complicated, but present amazing results.  There is nothing more fun/awesome than people ogling over something you made that literally required very little effort :)

In lieu of all this cooking talk, I'm going to share with you a blog/cookbook reference that might change your life:

Our Best Bites | Tips, Tricks, and Tastes from Two Real-Life Kitchens

I stalked the book these two wrote on Amazon for months and when I saw it at Costco one day for cheaper than Amazon I couldn't resist.  Probably my favorite aspect about this book, is that the two ladies who wrote it STRONGLY encourage you to use REAL ingredients (like use butter when the recipe calls for butter).  It makes all the difference and it feels SO good at the end of the recipe to know you really made everything from scratch and/or the best way you could make it.  Scotty and I are on a journey of better for you/whole/clean foods and I don't really even have to think about this book having any problem recipes in it.

BEST COOKBOOK PURCHASE OF MY LIFE (so far...)

I can't say that I've made everything in it yet, but everything I have tried thus far has not disappointed!

Here are some of the recipes I have tried (that are fortunately, also shared on the blog) and have absolutely LOVED:

Strawberry Sauce
Nothing fancy here, but delicious!  Perfect if you have some strawberries around and want something yummy for ice cream, waffles, or whatever you want strawberries on!  

Buttermilk Caramel Syrup
 Ok seriously.  Who would ever buy syrup again after tasting this?  I am 100% sold and 100% hooked.  Easy to make and DELICIOUS.  The book also has an apple cider syrup that also turned out great, but I would save that for chilly Fall/Winter mornings.

Spinach Mandarin Poppy Seed Salad
I am LITERALLY eating this right now.  Yum.  With the following salad dressing:

Poppy Seed Salad Dressing
My husband even likes this stuff, and he's the kind of guy who NEVER strays from ranch.  AMAZING, no?  It is also super easy.  I've tried making salad dressing before and this gives me hope that I can make more kinds in the future.

Brazilian Lemonade
Have you ever eaten at Tucanos?  You should go right now if you haven't.  Seriously.  Make sure you try the pineapple and order the Brazilian lemonade--you might die it is so yummy!  I've always wanted to know how to make it and this recipe comes pretty darn close.  I think this recipe is a bit sweeter than the restaurants', but it does the trick.  Don't drink too much or you WILL get a tummy-ache!

Mini Cheesecake Tarts
I made these for my bro-in-law's farewell party and they were the "secret" treat everybody kept sneaking around to find.  Easiest cheesecake of my life to make and one of the yummiest.  Top with some whipped cream and fresh fruit (or strawberry sauce) and you are good to go!

Here's my fav whipped cream recipe if you are interested (courtesy of the Lion House Entertaining cookbook...if you want another one to pick up...hehe)
1 Cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 Cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

Whip the cream until it starts to stiffen.  Add sugar and vanilla.  Continue whipping until stiff peaks are formed.  Done & Yumminess is born. 
NOTE: The original recipe has you use gelatin so it will stay stiff longer, but I have found that in most cases I don't need to worry about that. If you are worried about it staying "whipped" than go for it, but I find it's often too much of a hassle.

Last, but not least I am going to share with you the Lasagna recipe that I will be serving for book club.  It takes a LONG time to make, but it's not really complicated and the delicious smells kind of make it all worth it while you are cooking.

Peter's Pasta & Lasagna Sauce
I almost nixed the lasagna and made some pasta when I was making the pasta sauce.  This sauce is the part that smells SO GOOD.  

Peter's Lasagna
This was my first attempt ever at making lasagna and I do have to say that I am very proud of the results.  My mom calls it "creamier" than she is used to, but she still liked it.  It is supposed to be crazy authentic.  I hope it is, because you will feel super accomplished after making this.  ***If you are planning on doubling the recipe, make sure you have a BIG saucepan to cook the sauce in.  I had to outsource to a couple pans to get everything to cook and not explode/spill everywhere.  I'll let you know what the book club ladies think of it at the end of the week :)

I felt this was appropriate.... :)

 

Toilet Bowl Syndrome...

This is a term coined by my mother; and in case you have no idea what I am talking about, here is the TMI explanation: toilet bowl syndrome occurs when you have been working out and are TOO sore to sit on the toilet or get up from it.  You really have no choice but to continue with what you need to do, so you just experience EXCRUCIATING pain!  All you swimmers know exactly what I'm talking about.

I have not been this sore since my BYU swimming days!

can you find me? (hint: I'm next to a very blond person)

 

I have a bittersweet relationship with my body's soreness right now.
Last week I wanted to cry every time I sneezed bc my abs hurt so bad!

and guess who is responsible for all this???

My brother-in-law and my sister-in-law (no, not me!  I could NEVER have done this to myself lol)

Christian and Marci opened up a new gym in Saratoga Springs and I have now gone 3 times.  1: intro class that didn't feel so bad until the next day when I woke up being able to feel EVERY SINGLE MUSCLE IN MY TORSO. 2: OnRamp 1 where I did more squats than I ever want to think about ever again. 3: OnRamp 2 where I thought we wouldn't be doing any more squats, but guess what? we did.

I have 2 more classes to go this week and so far I have technically survived :)

As much as it hurts, I LOVE it.  I am getting more of a workout in 10-20 minutes than I was giving myself in an hour on my own!  Also, all the other people who are there dying with you are super nice and super supportive.  You can be competitive if you want, but it is mostly you pushing yourself as much as you think you need to.

CrossFit reminds me A LOT of dry land workouts from the swim team days.  For this reason, I can NOT wait for Scotty to be recovered from his surgery.  I know he is going to fall in love with CrossFit and it will be a great way for him to get in shape for AFROTC this next year.

Speaking of Scotty's recovery, guess what? Scotty had jaw surgery!

Scotty developed an underbite as his jaw grew, so we had been trying to fix it with braces, but they just weren't cutting it; so two weeks ago (May 7) the doc cut his upper jaw, moved it forward 7mm and put some metal plates in there to hold it all together.  Crazy, right?!  He spent 1.5 days/1night in the hospital and is on a liquid diet for 6 weeks (4 more to go!).  He can't lift more than 10 lbs right now and isn't allowed to go running or do anything too physical.

Here are some photos of the journey so far:

Pre-surgery.  Playing with the temperature-control for his hospital gown.
Did you know they had those??!  super cool.

post-surgery.  Probably wondering what the crap he got himself into at this point

Obi got to come visit! The nurses were so nice about it
and Scotty couldn't have been happier to see him!

Russell!  Thanks dad :)

heading home!!! Check out the awesome balloon from Britt!
It's still floating in our living room right now!

Merry Christmas!!!

So I'm still in-process of getting these mailed out....sorry if I ruined the suprise...I couldn't wait any longer!!

Thanks to my wonderful sis-in-law over at Britt-ish Designs, I made this card!!!  Seriously!  I am pretty proud of myself.  I had to ask my sister if it was cute before I ordered them, however, because I wasn't sure if it really was cute, or if I just liked it b/c I had spent so much time looking at it lol.

Here's a little gem for ya:

This is over on the Free KSL classifieds in case you are looking for a pool table.  ; )

Family Christmas party at Mutual Dell soon!  I made sweet potatoes w/marshmallows!  (hope it turns out better than the last time I tried making these..)

bye!

introducing.....

Ellie!!

just LOOK at that face!!

So we had been talking (seriously and not so seriously) about adding another dog to our family.
We thought it would be fun to have "his and hers" dogs, and to let Obi have a friend.  We also hoped that another dog would pressure Obi to eat his food better (anorexic dog over here).

We are suckers for the KSL classifieds and are always browsing either the pet section or the free section and emailing each other links.

Well my friends, that is where we found Ellie. 

According to the ad, Ellie was 12 weeks old (we found out later she was actually 15 weeks). She was not living in the best situation and needed a good family to adopt her.  I immediately fell in love with her (scotty was more interested in a german shephard or something like that) and wanted to go get her.  We contacted the people who had her and got up saturday morning and drove to Tooele to get her :)

We think that she is a little bit afraid of the car b/c that is what took her away from the only place she had ever known, but she is pretty cool with it now.  I think the family who had the puppies breed their dog and try to sell the puppies for Christmas $$, but it didn't work out so well for them this year and they just needed to get rid of the puppies before they got too old. If we could have, we would have taken home her brother, too (I think my sister almost went to get him, but he found a family).

APPARENTLY her dad was/is a champion dock jumper....which I totally believe, because you should see this little puppy jump!  She is SO much more adventurous and hyper than Obi ever was at her age!

She is just as goofy though:

Ellie LOVES Obi, and I think he's a little embarassed to admit it, but Obi loves her too ;)
He is SO protective of her, but he does pick on her quite a bit.  I think he really likes having a companion and constant playmate around.  They are definitely besties!

Fortunately, we have an awesome landlord and an awesome house with an awesome yard for them to run around in and hopefully they will catch those darn gophers!  The best is when we get back from the park, however and they are EXHAUSTED, so they just go lay down in their beds and sleep like good quiet puppies!

the trick is wearing them out, though :P