Tankin Yous

Hello and good evening/afternoon/morning! I hope that you have or will have a terrific day. No, I'm not jealous of your sunshine! Don't be ridiculous! Though, if you get tired of the heat I wouldn't mind if you sent some this way.

June. What a month. Pretty soon it will be the summer solstice, Father's Day, and least important, Shayli's birthday. Speaking of which, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SYD! I know she probably doesn't read this but I just couldn't forget her birthday!! Here it is still very light until nearly 11 at night. It's pretty crazy and I feel like a kid again when you're parents made you go to bed at 8:30 in the summer and it was still light outside. It was as if the light was taunting you that while you were in bed other kids were still playing in the bright summer light. Also, feliz dia del padre to all those padres. I hope your chidern treat you nice. Also congrats to all the cousins that graduated. I heard Bailey, Jenna, Preston, and Dallin all graduated this year. If I missed someone, please don't take it to heart and I wish you all the best with whatever the future you's have in mind.

"Your man has a bake like a busted gutty!" "Cracker, so it is like" I decided that I wanted to teach you all some "Norn Iron" slang. A gutty is a tennis shoe (or a trainer). Bake means face or mouth. Cracker is not a white person but something that is good. Yarn is to talk. Wick means stupid or useless. Chin waggin means to talk a lot. Chuffed means pleased or very happy. Like is often used in place of a period. Kex are underwear. Poke is ice cream. Scundered means embarrassed. For more slang click here. 

Back in May I had another interview for a different job at Norbrook. To my embarrassment I thought that when the lady told me about it she was saying it was for a second interview for the same job but it was for a different job. That's probably why I didn't get that job…oops! I am still waiting to hear back about the first interview but I am not holding my breath because it has taken them so long to get back to me. I do have an other interview on Monday and have applied to some other jobs near by. I just hope that I get something soon. So does Leo. He wants to add more filters to his collection and eventually get a new camera. Have I ever mentioned that he has expensive hobbies? ;)

A few weeks ago Leo was on his way to tech and decided to pull over and pump up some of the tires because they felt a little flat while he was driving. As he was getting back on the motorway some cops passed him and then flipped a U-y and pulled him over. As soon as the officer came to the window he said, "We smelt cannabis. Have you been smoking it?" To which Leo told him he hadn't been. The officer asked him if his friends had been smoking it in his car and Leo told him that there had never been any weed in the car while he had owned it. The cop went back to his car to check Leo's id and such then came back, gave it to him, and left without saying another word or bothering to check his car for weed. Now, if they had asked for any brownies, we could have supplied him well from the trunk.

This last week was the nicest it has been in a long time. It got up to 65 degree and was super sunny all day. In all my life 65 degrees never felt so good! With a few days of sun I even got a Teva tan. Shows you how white I have gotten if 65 degrees and a little bit of sun can tan my feet. Despite what the locals may say, it wasn't "roasting" but it was nice to have the sun out for so long :)

The last month or so Ronnie has been bothered by gypsies. I didn't know much about traveler when I first moved here but it is easy to see that they don't have a good reputation in this part of the world. Not all the gypsies travel, from what I understand. When we lived in Dundalk it seemed to be that there were gyspies that stayed in one place nearly their whole lives but they were still called gypsies. Apparently other Irish people can tell a gypsy just by the way they look and talk but I couldn't tell the difference. That upset some of the Irish people because they didn't want to be confused with gyspies and thought the difference was so apparent. Anywho, Twice in the last month they have come to his house asking if they could do labor jobs around his house for him. Both asking for ridiculous amounts of money. One of the times they were trying to get him to pay them to power-wash his driveway for about$160. His driveway is a lot smaller than my parents, for those of you who don't know. This last time it seemed they were trying to rob him. From what the neighbors told me, a young guy knocked on his door and was telling him how there had been sewage back-ups in the area and asked if he could take a look at Ronnie's. Ronnie, who had been on the phone previously to answering the door, told him to wait just one moment while he finishes this conversation he was having. While Ronnie was talking an the phone one of the neighbors approached this young guy and asked what he wanted. The younger man said hello but ignored his question and got on the phone and ran down the street where he got into a car that sped off. It seems that the younger guy was trying to get Ronnie in a room and distract him while a second guy goes in and takes his money and valuables. I can't be sure that's what they were after but it makes sense because in other nearby areas there have been reporting's of that kind of thing happening. One of the neighbors has a strong hatred for gyspies and told me there isn't enough petrol to burn them all.  I thought that was a very strong remark but it gives you an idea of how people feel about them here.

Disney's Gypsies

Real Gypsies

My mom will be able to relate to this next story, and for that I am sorry. Your poor nose. A few weeks ago I was eating yogurt with my breakfast and because I haven't eaten much diary the last year and half (yup, if I was on a mission I would be coming home next month :) ) my insides don't really like it and those around me like it even less. I had horribly stinky farts. At one point Michael tried to blame a fart on Leo and when he found out it was me exclaimed that he knew who wore the pants in our relationship. Leo has told me that his whole life he didn't think that girls farted or ever stank. He said that I proved that idea wrong. I don't know why a stinky fart is so funny, but have you ever had a stinky fart and not giggled at least a little even after you were done being embarrassed? The real story is that one morning my alarm was going off on my ipad. It happened to be one of the days Leo had off so I was trying to quickly turn it off so he wouldn't wake. I turned it off and picked up my iPad to leave the room and forgot that I had plugged it in to charge. As I tried to walk away I was suddenly jerked back and nearly fell on the bed. I don't know if the jerk scared me or if the sudden movement loosened my butt cheeks, but as I was nearly falling, a very loud fart broke free from my bum. Stunned from the noise of the chord and ipad being yanked from my hand and also the tremendous pressure that I had realized into the room, I picked my iPad up and was about to see if I had woke Leo up when he pinched me on the bum. For the whole week afterwards he wouldn't let me live it down and kept reminding him how rude I am to wake him from his deep slumber with a fart to the face. I fear I will be forever known as "fart-box".

We saw Barbara on Monday and while she was in a lot of pain, she seems to slowly be getting better. This month is the second month she has been in the hospital. Her bedsore is slowly healing but still hurts. She has been able to sit up in chairs and such for short periods but still will not walk. Her legs have atrophied a lot. Leo said that her legs look like his arms, which I don't know who I feel more sorry for. Her having super skinny weak legs or him having super skinny weak arms. Hopefully she will continue to improve.

Leo and I would like you all to call us by our correctly pronounced names that Lilja was kind enough to demonstrate.

While visiting Barbara at the hospital I was able to met her sister Jan who was able to give me a bunch of papers on their family history. Barbara is really weird about the past but luckily Jan seems much better about that kind of thing. It has been fun for both of us to read through the stories that had been collected. There was one story that Leo loved a lot where this servant that would watch the children on a family farm would use the sheep dogs to round the kids up and herd them into corners if they were misbehaving. With the help of these papers and stories I have been able to do a lot more family history work on Barbara's side than I ever thought I would be able to :) Miracles.

Living in Northern Ireland is awesome. To me, the quality of life is so much better, even if the economy is the worst in the UK, compared to the Republic of Ireland. Everything is so much cheaper here and there are a lot more things available here than compared to the south. Ireland, as a whole, is a fantastically beautiful country, especially this time of the year. The culture can be a bit rough but the people are generally nice. It is a quaint place to live with it's bakeries, butchers, and fresh veggies and fruit shops. Life does seem a bit slower here than anywhere else I've lived. We are much much happier up here and are so grateful that we were able to make up here when we did. With that said, I miss Utah a lot. There are lots of things (and people) that I miss. Some days are worse than others but overall I am glad to be with my husband living life together. I felt like I was wick because I just haven't fallen in love with living here because all over the internet there are people who move abroad and fall in love with it and never want to go back to the states. I have found very few people who didn't like abroad that much and moved back. Until the other day when I found a blogger that was married to a Belfast man and had lived here for a year but couldn't hack it and moved back to San Fran. As silly as it is it made me realize that it's ok to not love living here, but to enjoy the difference in scenery while I have it. I am very grateful for those of you who have continued to give your love and support. I know that without strong family ties this would have been so much harder than it already has been. I hope that you all have a fantastic week. Live long and prosper!!

Who makes a better baldy?