Project Pictures!

In my post below, which was posted before this one, I told you I would get some pictures of Billy's sweet project that he's working on right now. Well, here they are! The homeowners love, love, love it so far so that is good, but the pictures I think just do not do it justice and mostly look like a bunch of rocks. The beauty of the plants and sod will come later, for now, you can just appreciate that Billy somehow took a pile of rocks and a hillside and turned it into a mountain waterfall!

Also, he has a very cool video of this project and the water feature all done and running, but it was too big so, no luck. See it when you come visit us. He's done all this work in like 2 weeks! 

So you can see that wall of rocks behind the mini-ex was already there, and they wanted Billy to build a stream that came in waterfalls down on either side of the wall. So he did. 

The area dug out in this picture is where he would build stairs on the side of one of the waterfalls. 

And these are the stairs. There will be grass and stuff in between and alongside where there are just patches right now. But look out those stairs! Somehow Billy put them there.  

This is the right waterfall, in progress. It's done now, but I guess this is as good a picture you get for now.  

And the left waterfall. 

And now he's working on this flagstone patio, which is sweet! But also he didn't send me a good picture of some of the flagstone already laid so you'll have to wait until that's done to see it.  There's another patio in the works behind where he's standing in this picture. And you can kinda see the whole waterfall/stair/rock wall ensemble in the back if you open this picture up big. 

Anyway, there you go! I'm excited for it to be done done and actually see it in real life! 

We bought a house!

Actually, we didn't. We just bought this huge trailer that could serve as a house if we get desperate (which some days we do, but that's a whole different story). 

Anyway, sweet trailer! Billy has been needing one of these for so long and I think it was a good investment.

Now he's building shelves in it.

Our poor neighbors. We now have a shed, two trailers, two trucks, the occasional bobcat&trailer, garden boxes and an Oldsmobile all squeezed onto this little property. They are patient and kind. 

This picture is a little dark, but I took it because just look at all that big stuff. The business needs more room. Though we are very grateful for the space we have had thus far. 

Here are some other random pictures. 

We house/dog sat for Billy's mom a couple weeks ago. Charlie is a nut case.  

Look at that little creeper! 

Jamie and Dad and Billy put in Jamie's new counters and Billy was the elected contortionist plumber (probably with the typical crack, though you can't really see it haha!) 

I can't run since I got the cerclage so Billy now accompanies me on leisurely hikes through the mountains. I don't get nearly as far, but it is a good time and I'm happy I can still go into my mountains. 

Jamie! I regret not buying this! 

Billy has been working on a sweet project in Alpine! It is so cool! But I don't have pictures of it so when I get them I will make a separate post because it is sweet and the homeowners are SO pumped, which is always good. 

But while he was building a flagstone patio for them he was hammering in the flagstone with a dead blow mallet and someone distracted him and he smashed his finger!! OUCH! It gives me the shivers still, and every time I looked at it. It got so swollen and so nasty. (side note that what looks like a bruise running down the side of his finger is just a tar stain. But the finger tip is definitely all bruise!) 

Anyway, it was causing him great pain and discomfort so Mom and Jimmy and the internet finally confirmed that he could poke a hole in the nail to relieve the pressure so there was surgery 

And I didn't take a picture of the actual deed, but when he poked that red hot paper clip into his nail there was a little explosion and a river of blood. augh!! It was horrible! and then it just bled and bled and bled for like 4 more hours! In fact, after awhile you could watch the little bubble of blood coming out of the hole and it just pulsed in time with his heartbeat haha gross. And now I"m nervous he's going to get an infection! But it's already a lot less swollen and bruised so maybe that was good. 

That's pretty much it for now. Baby boy is doing good we think, and so is my cervix, we think, but we still very much hold our breaths every day. Too many soul-exhausting-dodecahedron emotions we anticipated might be hard but could not even imagine how hard, but Billy saves me every day and so we will be all right. 

And so on to my favorite holiday ever and garden planting soon! And hopefully finding a new place to live!

Carter Hilarity

When CJ and Eric took their President's Day trip and Jamie had the kids, Jamie had a thing at one point so we got the kids for a few hours and it was nothing short of pure Carter hilarity! We always have fun when the Carter kids come to our house, but this time was especially funny because all of my dress up clothes was out and they went to town with that goodness. 

Being a fancy lady was automatically the first goal: 

Oh my Brooke made us laugh SO HARD. We were dying. She stayed involved with the whole dress up deal longer than anyone else and kept adding layers and layers. Since "fancy lady" was the goal, she would put on a new item and then go make this ridiculous face at Billy that cracked us up and is just not adequately portrayed in a picture. 

I think she was trying to make a "fancy" face, but couldn't figure out how to get her eyebrows to work so I cannot describe exactly what the actual result was except that it made us laugh forever. I still am laughing imagining it at this moment. CJ, I don't know if you can ask her to recreate it, but it probably won't even be as good becuase she won't have all this ridiculous clothes on haha. It was so funny.

And of course CharlyAnn was precious as ever, and also made us laugh so hard. 

Brooke's second outfit was as magnificent as her first (the striped shirt is actual a pair of my leggings haha)

Viana being fancy and rich! Ram only dabbling, but mostly he lost interest and went and colored at the table instead.  

Even Billy got a turn, thanks to the girls! 

Come anytime, Carters! We laughed our heads off!

ILC!

I went to LA for our International Leadership Conference! It's basically a gathering of all the most passionate noni people on this globe, and it was crazy. But fun! And then Billy came and met me in LA and we hung out in California for a time! 

So here's the event, I didn't take nearly as many pictures as would've sufficiently captured the experience: 

Some of my Tahitians! It was such a thrill finally getting to meet the people I work day in and day out with. They were friendly and kind and happy as Polynesians come. 

Also some Nigerians who I work with, who sported their country pride by sticking flags in their hair. I thought it was wonderful! 

The event was held in downtown LA and we had the whole convention center decked out with Morinda stuff. it was pretty cool. LA was CRAZY! I would not survive in a big city. Props to Jamie. 

Huge stage 

More distributors from Nigeria 

Regional meetings with the Tahitians, just look at that guy in the green! He is one of my main people and was not what I expected but was just like a big ol friendly Tahitian guy. haha so funny.  

Asian invasion! So many Asians in one place! 

LA life, every building was tall and no building is independent. I walked to and from my hotel every day and probably looked like such a tourist because I just was gaping at everything around me all the time. So crazy! Such a crazy place, just people, all kinds of people, going everywhere and doing their thing. And I just cannot comprehend how any business would ever need a building this huge. I just kept thinking of all the employees filling all the cubicles in this building for at least 8 hours a day and having desk jobs in those places and was amazed at the work force in this world.  

The hotel I stayed in was really, really nice, definitely the nicest I've ever stayed in, and it was awesome! The bed was huge and soft and when I came home after my first day the hotel staff had rearranged all my bathroom stuff on a nice little towel! Haha I thought it was nice.  

Another shot of the big stage, I wish you could see just how crazy this theater is. It's where they do a bunch of famous concerts and stuff, including American Idol, the Grammys, the Oscars whatever. So that's cool.  

We just partnered with these people called LiveExercise and they had a fitness booth in our store at the event and I was assigned to help them. Which was like fine and cool when I thought I was all cool for being chosen to be at the fitness booth but when they came and I saw that they were the most insane fitness people and had muscles I've seen on no other human, I mostly cowered haha. I just kept thinking, "please don't ask me anything about lifting weights, going to the gym, exercise videos or otherwise, because all I know is every trail in Utah and how to run up huge mountains and that's it!" And they ended up being CRAZY! And they thought all of us were crazy for never having partaken of coffee in our lives, they needed a new cup every hour. 

Anyway, I didn't really get any pictures of the fitness booth, but it was fun cus I got to wear sweats the whole time and talk to people about being healthy and we played games and had contests. Definitely the most fun booth, and what I learned is that noni distributors aren't all that great at sports haha. But they like the idea of being fit, so we sold a ton of resistance bands and signed people up for this exercise program. It was good. That's what I did for most of the days, besides having regional meetings with my peeps. 

Here are more of them! These Nigerian ladies absolutely swarmed me after one of the meetings and just asked me questions about who knows what for a long time and it was nerve wracking. Also, I have worked for this company for 2 years and definitely know that there are passionate noni people out there, but seeing it in action was a whole different world. Those people are seriously passionate. You've got to have a special gene or something to be into this network marketing stuff.  

My hotel lobby. Basically had a water park in it! Crazy. 

All the people.  

Man, was I tired when it was all done! Everyone told me that it is just exhausting but I was like.. how bad can it be? It was bad. I was so tired, not to mention I got allergies or something while I was there, so by the time Billy made it to California on the next to last day we just ended up hanging out. 

The day after the conference was over me and Billy went to church at a singles ward cus that was the only one we could find--haha! Such funny memories! Then we took a very wet stroll on the beach at this pier. It was raining the whole time, but still warm, so we were happy.  

We drove to St. George that night and intended to potentially visit Zion's or Bryce in the morning, but when we woke up there was tons of snow!!! I've never seen snow in St. George!  

So instead we decided to just go home. But southern Utah had never been so dear to me, so open and building-less and beautiful. I love that desert! We had so much fun, i'm so glad Billy decided to come. ILC was crazy and I am still tired from it (mostly becuase I'm still sick from it) but I'm glad I went and it was truly a joy to meet my people. Good job, noni people!