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Monday, October 17, 2011

I watched this...

last night at the Bokinsky's house. It made me even more excited. *big-sigh* Oh, VISA. Why do you have to take so long to travel to a different continent? Still waiting.




Oh, PS, my farewell date is December 18th in the Seaford, Delaware ward at 10 am. In case anyone is interested. haha A phone call will suffice.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Mission Dress #1

My mom and I made this dress. Since no stores want to have dresses that go below your knees AND have sleeves, we have resorted to making my own. And when I say my mom and I, I mean that she sews and I.... pick out the fabric... :)

That's not me being lazy. It's actually a good idea. If you haven't seen my "elephant" that will explain everything... :)

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Cookies!

This is the recipe for the best sugar cookies you have ever tasted! That's right, the girl who burns boxed brownies is attempting to bake again! Ask any family members, they are tasty.

Best Sugar Cookies EVER:

1 C butter
2 C Sugar
2 Eggs
3 tsp Vanilla
1 C Sour Cream
1 tsp Salt
2 tsp Baking Soda
5 1/2 C Flour

Soften the butter, then mix in the sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Then you add the sour cream. If you want, I've discovered that you can do half a cup of sour cream and half a cup of Greek Yogurt. Just so you know... Combine the salt, baking soda and flour, then slowly add it to the other mixture. Refrigerate for at least an hour before trying to bake anything.


Roll the dough out about 1/4 inches thick on a very floured surface. Grease a cookie sheet with Pam, then line it with parchment paper. You can experiment with that. Bake at 375 for only 7-8 minutes. Doesn't matter how big the cookies are, as long as they are the same thickness, that's how long you cook them for. I promise.



Tasty, soft, perfect sugar cookies!

Also, if you want frosting, the Cream Cheese kind is delicious, but:

Butter Cream Frosting:

1/2 C Softened Butter
4 C Powdered Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla
1/4 -1/3 C Milk

Cream the butter, then beat in the powdered sugar and vanilla. Add the milk gradually until you get the right consistency. Also, if you want, a little Almond Extract doesn't hurt it. :)

Enjoy! And tell me what you think...

Monday, September 12, 2011

Attempt #3!

Cute little monster!

With buttons. :)

Rawr!

Attempt #2!

A cute little girly robot!


Much better than the last one, for sure... <3

Thursday, September 8, 2011

1st Sewing Project. Ever.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Temple

On August 6th, which was a Saturday, my Mom and I drove to New Jersey to pick up Brian's daughter Riley. She is a doll, to say the least. We then drove to Philly to pick up Brian and Dallin from the airport. Riley lives in NJ with her mom and Brian came to spend a week with her at our house in Delaware. On Wednesday the 10th, me, Mom, and Dallin left at 4am to pick up my friends Jeanie and Larry. It was a grand reunion and we used up our day exploring the historic parts of Philidelphia. I wanted to kick myself when my first thought when we got into Independance Hall was, "Hey, Nicholas Cage was here for National Treasure", instead of, "Wow, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin,..." I don't even like Nicholas Cage! He is ugly and a terrible actor. Anyway, we saw it all. Congress Hall, Liberty Bell, cemetery with some of our founding fathers, and the US Mint. The next day, my Mother and I left our house at 7:30 to make our way to D.C. We drove around the many hills on the Beltway and finally saw the Emerald City, I mean... D.C. Temple sticking way up above the trees. :) It is a very large temple. I think they said one of the largest built. They said even bigger than SLC? I don't know about that... but it was big! We stopped at the distribution center first, on account of it was my first time, and we had 15 minutes to spare by the time we got in for my scheduled 10:30. That's right people, I'm worthy!!! Haha! Not that I gave anyone a reason to think otherwise, but I now know what goes on inside the temple! When people say you don't talk about what goes on inside the temple, they mean you don't talk about what goes on inside the temple! I had so many questions running through my head, but as soon as it was time for me to ask them, I didn't know what I wanted to ask. I think a good diagnosis would be that I was "struck dumb". Well, more-so than normal. :) The best thing though, was that no matter how confused I felt, or how surprised I thought I was, the most overshadowing emotion I felt at that time was peace. Above everything else that I was thinking, I knew that what I had just witnessed was completely true. Even after I went home, I still felt it! It was like, I had my wisdom teeth out again and my dentist gave me an extra prescription for Happy pills. I guess Heavenly Father thought, "Gees, she is thinking way too much about this. She know she can come back whenever she wants and take it all in again, right? *sigh* I'm just going to dump some more 'FeelGood' on her head." That was a good feeling to have the rest of the week with good friends and family surrounding me. I felt so loved and content. The day after the temple, was... a Friday, and we spent the whole day at the beach. Our timing was perfect because the dolphins decided to come out when we got there. There were crabs in the sand where we were swimming and they would go after our toes. I swear I got pinched by a clam or something, because I had a sliver shaped blood blister on my big toe. That night, we walked over to the Hoffman's house and had s'mores around a campfire. The next day, it decided to rain. It was also transfer day, so that meant the main roads would be bumper to bumper with people leaving town from their week long vacation, and people entering town for their week on the beach. So, we pretty much chilled at home til it was time to drive to Philly to drop people off at the airport. It poured clear there. I got to drive the truck with Jeanie and Larry and we just jammed out to "He Is We" and "Hey Monday" all the way there. I felt bad that most of their stay was spent in a car and that we didn't get to see all the places we wanted to, but I'm glad that I have friends that came to support me instead of trying to get all they could out of their plane ticket. Overall, it was a good week.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

The Call


Tired of hearing "Oh, my gosh" yet? :)

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Dear Sister Gordon,

You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Brazil Rio de Janeiro Mission. It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 18 months.

You should report to the Brazil Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, January 11, 2012. You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Portuguese language.



I have a couple months for it to sink in. I need to get me a Rosetta Stone or something....

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Office Max

I was at work the other day, and my shift was from 8-4. I am the cashier/front counter person that collects the dimes for copies.... yeah... lame. But today, my first customer was a blond lady who came in with her Starbucks, ready to go. She gave me her flashdrive, picked out the paper she wanted it printed on, and I pushed print. I went to pick up the paper and as I was walking back to give it to her, I saw a cute picture of her holding a baby girl, and the title underneath was "The Day I Died". I guessed from how it was set up that it was the front and back cover for a book. She noticed me looking at her paper and she explained what it was all about. I was very impressed and remembered her name so I could look her up on youtube. This video is of her on some Christian talk show. Skip ahead to 24:30, watch as long as you want, it tells her whole story clear to the end.


The host guy talks a lot, but that tells her whole story. Holy Shmoley, right? Amazing story... I might like Office Max if I had cool people come in all the time like that. But alas, I'm leaving for Delaware to put in my mission papers... :)

Friday, May 13, 2011

Friday the 13th...

So, Dallin is gone to Chicago for the summer. :( I'm going to miss my crazy brother. But, on a glass is half full note, he left his roadster bike here for me to use to get to work! If you haven't read my previous post about my skateboard, read it now. I'll wait for you....


Ok. So, it takes me 30 minutes on my skateboard. On this bike??? 10 minutes!
-UdallFamilyChoirSingingHallelujahChorus-
Best Birthday of my life!

This morning I worked at both places, meaning OfficeMax from 8-4, then Nike from 5:15 to 10. So, I had to hurry and ride my bike home before my friend Derek gave me a ride to Scottsdale. I was going south on Rural and I was about to cross Southern. The white "walk" man and just turned into the red flashing hand, so I had plenty of time to get across. I'm going normal cruising speed on a bike, and I make my way into the cross walk. Then, some SUV does a little stop and look for oncoming traffic, and starts to merge. With my bike.

Thats right. I got hit by a car. I noticed she was going to accelerate, so I tried to slam my breaks, which squealed, and tried to swerve out of the way, but she nailed the back end and knocked me over. I almost was forced into oncoming traffic, but I managed to stay in the crosswalk. So, I get up, stand there looking at where I am for 5 seconds, then pick my bike up and walk it back to the sidewalk I just came from. She rolls down her window and asks me if I'm ok, and thats when I start shaking and the adrenaline kicks in. And the hysteria. I look myself over and realize I'm not hurt at all and say with a big smile and a laugh, "Yeah, I'm fine!" She says are you sure, I say yeah I'm good, and.... She drives AWAY! The car behind her stops and asks if I'm alright because I'm just standing there on the sidewalk with my hand over my heart and my other hand on my forehead. Again, I'm good. They say to me, "That was a close call!" And I laugh and say "YEAH IT WAS!" with maybe a little bit too much force.

So, the moral of this story boys and girls, is that I've had Dallin's very nice roadster bike for a grand total of 1 and a half days. And now the back tire is wonky. I'm never riding a bike on Friday the 13th again.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Oh, Baby!

Just some dang cute pictures of this sweet little boy. He was super happy and cuddly last time I got to visit. Or I'm just funny-looking. :)


Sunday, April 24, 2011

Skateboarding to OfficeMax

In case you didn't know already, I got another job at OfficeMax in the Printing section. Now, this is not my idea of an ideal part time job. It is the most boring job I've ever had. Ranging from selling 10 cent copies to laminating 20 papers. Awesome. But, its 2 miles away and I don't have to depend on anyone to get there. I just get my skateboard and I'm off. However. It's an obstacle course on that sidewalk. There are cracks and rocks and crazy twigs. Sprinklers go off all the time. And there are these trees. There is a whole mile that has trees that hang over the sidewalk. They have seeds that fall off all the time. They look like olives. But inside them, are pits or seeds or whatever that are the size of large pebbles. Or small rocks. Whichever is bigger. I skate over them holding my breath. Imagine, if you will, the part on Finding Nemo, where Bruce the giant shark is meandering his way through the mine field that will blow up at any second. I am Bruce in this analogy, winding my way through the mine fields of olive-looking seeds all over the sidewalk. I have flown plenty of times because my wheels hit the seeds and stops the board, but I keep moving. So. The reason for this post. If anyone has a bike that I can use, I will fix it up and make it all nice-like and put it to good use. It will save me about 10 minutes getting to work, and I won't have any battle scars from trekking through the mine fields. I will forever be in your debt. Or, I can buy you Yogurtland and we'll call it even. :)

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Free Day

March 1st, 2011- Free Day
Anything that has the word Free in it is alright in my book. And I had a whole day with a whole lot of free. So, in other words, today was a good day.

8:30 am- Leave apartment for work. Got a ride with my roommate because her clinic is close to the store. I have all happy customers that are happy for my help, which makes it go by so much faster. When 2:15 rolls around, my manager says, "Hey, go in the back and tell Lyndsay to get you your new staff dress." Yes! New staff dress! It consists of:

2 shirts
Another black jacket


2 pairs of yoga pants
And some fantastic new running shoes


But wait! Thats not all! I got a text after I got off work that said today was International Pancake Day at IHop! That means free pancakes! So, I told as many friends as I could about it, but only one had the free time to go. So me and Larry went to IHop and ate free pancakes!


After that, Larry and I went to CSL Plasma and let them stick large needles in us for $50! And you are aloud to do it twice a week! If I do that religiously for a month, thats 400 bucks!

So, yeah. It was a good day. I hope everyone has a Free Day sometime soon. I find it very therapeutic.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Chocolate?

Last night I worked a 1-10 shift at the store. I car pooled with my roommate since we worked the same hours and my car is dead. But thats a different story. So, we get home around 10:30 and the routine is we get into comfy pajamas and turn on Netflix and watch an episode (or two or three) of Grey's Anatomy. Well, I go into my room and find this:


on my pillow. Ali was with me all day, so I ask Janie, our other roommate. With a very straight face, she says she was gone all day. 1. How did this person get into our house, 2. Either Ali is lying or Janie is lying, 3. I have a secret admirer.... :)


Thursday, January 13, 2011

Nike Scottsdale Run Club


After working at the Nike store for a while now, I got to join our Nike+ Run Club. We meet every Wednesday at 6:00 and either run 3, 5, or 7 miles depending on what other people want to do. There are usually 3 employees that run, so one is the pacer who decides where we are running, and the middle guy who just does his own thing, and then there is the sweeper, who runs with the slowest person so they don't feel left behind. Now, I love free stuff. And I would like to say that I joined the run club because I love to run, but that is a flat out lie. I hate running, because I'm terrible at running. I joined because I get a free shirt, and free running shoes. I need help picking between this color:

and this color:


Until I get them though, I've been running in these:

Can I just say that I LOVE these shoes? I'm not trying to be a Nike Salesperson right now, but I think everyone in the world should own a pair of these. They are so comfortable and so light weight and flexible and so good for your feet. You've all seen the Sketcher "Shape-Up" shoes, right? The ugly ones with the round bottom? This is Nike's concept of the toning shoes. Why do people in Africa run so fast? Because they practice their running barefoot. Meaning they have stronger feet and lower leg muscles. I ran yesterday for run club and my feet and lower legs are killing me! But its a good pain. I love sore muscles. So, if anyone wants to come run with us, every Wednesday at the Nike store in Scottsdale Quarter, 6:00pm. It will be fun!

Friday, November 26, 2010

I Hang Out With Cool People


Great way to entertain kids AND get a great leg workout:
1. Lay a blanket/towel down underneath your trampoline.
2. Crawl under and lay on the blanket/towel on your back.
3. Put your feet perpendicular to the ground so they touch the trampoline like so:
4. Make sure children's faces are not looking down at you. Have them sit in an upright position.
5. Bounce them up off the trampoline EVERY time they say, "Again! Again! Your legs aren't tired anymore! Again! You already rested! Again! Are you sleeping? Bounce me! Bounce me high!" etc.


My legs were sore for 2 days. Also, I guess I was laying on a rock or large pebble because I had a bruise on my spine from it. So, maybe go with the blanket instead of towel...


Sunday, November 21, 2010

Nike Scottsdale Store Challenge

The weeks before the Nike store opened, all the new employees had to go to a week long "Rookie Camp". I explained it more in a previous post, but one guy flew out from Oregon where HQ is, and he was I think the Nike+ technology guy. Engineer or programmer or something. Anyway, he did his shpeal with a powerpoint cramming all kinds of information into our heads about Nike+ and how it works, and then he gave us a test. After we were done, he said, Who got 20 out of 20 right? One person raises their hand. He gives them one of these:


Anyway, he kept going down until he only had one band left. He said the number and 3 of us raised our hands. We played Rock Paper Scissors. I won. :) Then he told us all about the Employee Store Challenge that would be going on. You would have to have a sensor of some kind to upload your runs onto the website, and whoever ran the most miles in one month would win an iPad. Second place would get an iTouch. Third Place would get the new Nano Touch. And the results were!!!:

Yeah. It wasn't really an iPad competition after the guy got 40 miles the first week and I got 10, and then the second place guy kept uploading random runs out of nowhere. He told me the other day that he turned his sensor on while he was working so he got extra miles just from walking around the store. I called him a cheater. But! I don't care! I get this:
For running 50 miles. :) I even had a couple of 5k's that I did! Never thought that would happen!

Yes, I'm proud.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

The Best Is Yet To Come

Lately, I've been in a reflecting mood. As in, I've been wondering what the heck I'm doing right now in my life and all that jazz. So, here is all the analyzing that went on in my brain:


I'm not going to school. This summer when I found out that I lost my scholarship, I was terrified on so many levels. First of all, that was a lot of free money. I lived off of it for 2 years. It paid for my rent, insurance, food, gas, and I still had enough to play all the time. It was a really good hook up. Now, I would have to get a job and earn all of that good stuff. And work A LOT. Like, more than 20 hours a week!! (Imagine I said that like a dumb blonde haha) Second of all, I was scared of what other people would think. I was friends with and related to so many people that got scholarships as well, and I felt like an idiot because I couldn't keep mine. Really, how hard is it to keep your GPA higher than 3.25? It wasn't hard at all. But, tell you the truth, I didn't take it serious enough. I didn't know what major I wanted or what job I was working towards,.........

I've been meeting some fantastic people. When I got back from Delaware this summer, I would hang out with my usual friends that I knew before. Well, they met more people and so our "group" got larger. One girl named Ali started hanging out with us, and we became good friends. I envy her outgoing/semi-loud personality, but we are both equally as chill, I guess you could say. Anyway, we get along good. She is a very fun girl. So, I got back from the East Coast, and we start hanging out. After a month of no job luck, she says to me, Hey! There is a new Nike store opening up in Scottsdale! You just have to apply online. We should work together! and so, we do. We both work at Nike which is fantastic. We both got the call that we were hired within 2 days, and so we celebrated. We got to go through the whole "Rookie Camp" of learning about the history of Nike, we had to memorize all the shoes, and the technology in the shoes (Max Air, Zoom Air, what kind of foam is in the midsole.....), and we did all kinds of role playing. And they gave us free stuff. :) There were people that flew in from Oregon (where HQ is) and New York (where the largest NikeTown is). But anyway. I get along great with all of my managers and co-workers. I have nicknames from a lot of them as well. I take that as a good sign.

I live with my brother. I'm not going to lie, sometimes it is frustrating, but mostly, it is just fun. It really is great that we get along so good, otherwise, we would hate each other. How profound, right? Haha. We hang out with the same group of friends and we gossip about the same things, and we make fun of each other, and it is just a blast. I tell him stories about what happened at work and he tells me about all the new words he learned in his Chinese class that day... shoot me brains out (Irish accent). Yay for different languages... Anyway, our apartment situation is good.

I miss my family. I'm jealous of all the people who just have to drive 3 hours to give their Mom or Dad a hug. I miss staying up late with Sarah, Jesse, Dallin, and the parents playing dice and card games where we laugh a LOT! But I don't just miss my Delaware family. I miss Arizona family as well. Now that I work all the time, I don't get to see my favorite Stoddard's. I used to babysit over there all the time and they are some of my most favorite people. They pretty much helped me survive the first month when I didn't have a job. I'm so excited for baby #3! November 7th was my Grandma Udall's birthday, so she and Grandpa have been on my mind. I got an email from my cousin today, who is transcribing their life stories that were recorded, and my Grandpa said:

"I still am always excited every morning that the sun came up again, that it didn't go somewhere else in the night. (laughing) And I have great pleasure come to me when I see my little grandchildren doing well. I love to watch Emily play basketball... or volleyball. She's not a spectacular player but she's very steady and very dependable. It's so interesting. And so on with the others. ..."

They were both very big supporters of me in my high school sports, especially when we played against Thatcher. :) I'm selfishly sad that I won't have them in my "Family Temple Picture", among other things.

So, after adding all these together and multiplying them by terror and dividing by praying, I decided that I'm in the right place right now. Right place in my life. I think that me losing my scholarship was Heavenly Father's way of saying, Whoa. Let's try this some other time. or, Ok, you totally missed my queue for the major you need to declare. Either one. Or both. :) The people I associate with help me see what kind of person I want to be, what kind of person I don't want to be, and its always a plus when they have the same standards as you. I'm glad I have a reliable roommate and I love my family.

I am happy with my life right now.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Gonzo, Shmonzo...

I helped Luis Gonzalez pick out some sweat pants yesterday at the store. He came in with his brother and because everyone recognized him except me, I was the only one NOT freaking out. Winning hit and the World Series? Ok. Cool. You want a jacket to match?


Now, if Misty Mae or Kerri Walsh were to stroll in, then someone would have to administer CPR. I dare them to come visit Scottsdale. I dare them...