What to wright.....?

So my life is really boring. Really. This is what I have done for the last 3 weeks:
1. Watched 'Americas got Talent'
2. Watched 'Dexter'
3. Watched 'Raising Hope'
Yeah....so... you get the picture.  It comes down to this- I got a subscription to Hulu Plus.
 
     What else, what else, what else???
So why is it so hard to solve crimes in West Virginia?  All the DNA is the same and there is no dental record.

With that I will have to say "Good Night".

Falling off the face of the Earth

So.... the title should explain it all.   I fell off the face of the earth and landed in the Amazon soul sucking pitt.  I like my job to an extent but like most humanoids I feel my essence being sucked out through my toes every time I walk into the office.
I was reading my past blogs and comments and I found myself missing my "blog family".  So I will try and pick it back up.   A two year hiatus from the world is not so unusual for a mormon so I guess I don't feel that bad about dropping this blog like it was the bubonic plague.
Here are the rules:
#1.  If you comment, I will come...I mean blog. (word play from a field of dream...anyone?  Well, it was funny to me, so there!)
#2.  If I have a relapse of the bubonic plague you have every right to shun me and throw stuff at me.  (p.s. I could really use a new computer so if anyone wants to throw one of those at me I would not complain too loudly.)

That's it. 2 simple rules. Now lets play.  :)

All about Paige

Alright Paige, I promised you a blog so a blog is what your going to get. Muhahaha...
I have a younger sister named Paige. gone are the days I can call her my "little sister". Some children go from crayons to perfumes, Page went from pompoms to standard issued militarily boots. (but she still smells good). She has the Midas gift when it comes to trying new things and always seems to have beginners luck when playing games, even if it's the millionth time she's played it. Paige's favorite thing in the whole world is to travel the whole world. She likes to cook but doest have a clue of how to do it. She also likes Zack. Zack joined the church a while ago and Paige was surprised when people starting asking her when they are going to get married. I guess it has been obvious to everyone but her. I have never even seen Zack except on Skype one time. He lives in Alaska. I don't. Paige wants to.

I love Paige.

smoking vs. picking your nose

I have been in WV/Ohio for a week now and I have not posted anything because where I am staying has no internet access. It also is laking a T.V. so I have been reading. A lot. That said, I had to drive 20 minuets just to get internet service so I could write this blog.
I have noticed that EVERYONE here is a smoker and I can't remember living anywhere that people did not know it was a bad habit. In Houston the majority of the population was heath conscious and AZ and UT the majority was mormon. The last place I lived that had such a high smoker population was China. So I was thinking that watching all of these people do something so gross and nasty is like watching them pick their nose in public. It's just so wrong. Anyone with half a brain knows it's going kill you and it's not like cigarettes are the cheapest things in the world to buy. So how is it that they can afford them but at the same time be too poor to put glass in the windows of their house so they just slap up a pice of plywood. I just don't understand the desire to pick your nose in public.

coleslaw

Do you ever feel like coleslaw? You might ask "what a strange question, she must be writing this at 3:00 in the morning." And you would be right. It's like this. Coleslaw is great...as a side dish. You never want to just order a big plate of the stuff and dig right in, then when you are done you sit back and think to yourself "gee, I'm glad I put on my stretchy pants today." That feeling is reserved for the pot-pie. So I ask you again: Do you ever feel like someone's side dish or are you a pot-pie kind of person?

Road Trip

So after the family reunion Taylor and I got in the car and drove to Fort worth TX. There was a horrible storm coming into Amarillo and For Taylor it was the best part of the hole trip. For me, I'm just glad we didn't die. There was tons of lighting and hale and the rain was so loud that Taylor and I could not hear each other yelling in conversation. Right now I'm at Trish and Gus's in Houston and it is one weird dejavo being back here. I think I will be staying at Trish's for a day or two before starting out again on the road. Aug! I hate driving!

Porter Pics (By Mara)

Riri couldn't think of what to write, so she put "by Mara" in parentheses and gave me the computer.

This weekends camping experience: Wet, cold, dirty and full of hikes. Dad decided it would be great if we hiked down the valley/canyon, and it took forever. cherry on top, at the end of the hike it rained so everything was slippery and wet while we were hiking back out. Just for emphasis, wet, cold, dirty. That pretty much sums it all up. One of the few really fun things was the rock garden. People when they come through, they stack rocks. It was really cool. Near the end of the rock garden, there was a rock statue that looked like a person in a top hat. It had legs, arms , and a flat rock with a square rock on top of it to make it look like a top hat. The coolest part was a rock that was the shape of a head, and had marks on it that made it look like a face.

Last week Riri took us to take pictures and it was the worst trying to get the pictures taken. There was some sort of a convention going on and they had rock music playing in the background, and I could not look at the camera. (Riri posted the pics and comments)

Can't you tell they are not having any fun and Riri is torturing them?

(actually Kristen told them to picture her naked to make them laugh. You can see Mara almost throw-up in her mouth :)

Porters looking so cute it's almost deceiving.

Mara -12

Taylor-12

Joanna-10

Rebecca-8

Jeremy-4

Kate-3

By Kristen

OK, so mother nature didn't cooperate while we were camping. The first night the low was 34 degrees and it poured rain. The second night was warmer, no rain either, but the wind made up for that and it was even more uncomfortable than the first night.

We had great food (planned by moi), but the hamburger/hot dog cookout for the second night was replaced with a local restaurant because it was....wait for it....raining cats and dogs.

Thanks to Mike's wonderful planning and two sleeping bags each, everyone came home in one piece and no one got frost bite or swept away in a flash flood.

None of us had ever been to Bryce Canyon. It was absolutely remarkable. The rock formations are called Hoodoos. They are created by erosion. Bryce canyon is one of the most rapidly changing landscapes on Earth. The ridge is being eroded at the rate of 1 foot per 50 years. We went on a hike 350 feet down into the canyon and back up again on a path from Sunset Point to Sunrise Point. It was about 3 miles all together. We walked through some narrow canyon paths, and some natural (and less than natural) bridges. It was great to be above, at eye level, and then below these huge hoodoo's that looked like sculptures by Picasso.

At the bottom of the canyon about half way through the hike we came across a rock garden. Hikers throughout the years had made piles of rocks everywhere. On the ground, in the dry wash, in the trees. Some of them were really intricate and complicated with balanced rocks defying gravity. Others were just small piles. It was fun to make our own piles before we left to continue the hike.

Andy came on the trip with us - he's always been a glutton for punishment. We invited Riann, but she is not a glutton for punishment and made her apologies while waving goodbye to us as we drove away pulling our gear behind our minivan.

Thanks for reading my comments on RiRi's blog.

Jesus is INVINCIBLE!

The other night I was singing a song to Jeremy and Kate that our dad used to sing to us called 'Lord Randal'. At the end Jeremy asked "what does 'fate will lie doom" mean?' So I told him that it means he will die and he can't run away from death. Jeremy asked 'where do you go when you die?' and of course I told him you go to heaven to live with Jesus. He then looked at me like I was crazy and said 'but Jesus is so, is so...INVINCIBLE!' It was the best answer I ever got from the "where to we go when we die" conversation that I ever had.

Where is the grass greener?

They say the grass is always greener on the other side. However, I seem to enjoy the turfs of grass that are growing on top of the fence post separating the two fields.
I watched Kristen's kids again for 3 days while she was in Vegas with Mike. I am so glad I don't have 6 kids. Being the favorite aunt lets me have some of the benefits and trials with out having ALL the benefit and trials. I think fence sitting is my forte.

Grad Gifts

So I graduated last week and Kristen took me out to eat, it was very yummy! I also got a surprise from my parents that I was not expecting. My dad gave me a HAND written note saying that he was proud of me and that I am his favorite. (so suck it DeNae, I have it in writing and that will hold up better in court that your "verbal" confirmation of you being his favorite). My mom gave me a loaf of bread. Ahhh, yeah, you heard me right. A loaf of bread. I could not stop laughing. Nothing says "congratulations!" better than bread.
Can I just tell you how much I love my parents. They are the best example of everything I want to be when I grow up. They are kind and Thrifty- what more could you ask for?

Author: Kristen Porter

Jeremy antics
This week has been an adventure medically for the Porter family. On Monday at recess Rebecca broke her arm - snapped the ulna neatly in two. We have a good orthopedic surgeon after Joanna's adventure last year, so she'll be fine.

Anyway, on Thursday Jeremy woke up with urine the color of Dr.Pepper again. We ended up at the pediatrician, the hospital, the nephrologist, the blood lab, and radiology. For 8 hours I was alone with him and he was cracking me up.

We played the "I got your nose" game with every body part imaginable. Then he started "I got your head". At first he would take my head and not give it back. Then he threw it into the hallway and I said "You can't do that, go get my head and give it back". He said "Mom, you can't talk, you don't have a head". So I started gesturing toward the hallway trying to get him to understand that if he didn't go get my head he was going to be in big trouble. He said "I don't think I'm going to give you your head back, I like it when you can't talk". Finally he got my head out of the hallway, but instead of giving it back, he took off his head and put mine on and said in a high pitched voice "I'm Mommy, so you have to do what I say!"

Anyway, we had a lot of fun. We learned that the blood is not being caused by an infection like strep, and it isn't being caused by kidney stones. Everyone is trying to rack their brains and figure out what could be causing this. I'll let you know when we find out.

Thanks for reading my silly story.
- Kristen

Very marry unbirthday to Earth

Oh pa-leese DeNae, as if you can compare my few days of lack of writing with your "dry spell" of nearly a month!

So yesterday was Earth day and I found this really funny post and thought I would share it with you:
No offense to the greenies (I'm sure you mean well but you're in the handbasket) but isn't celebrating Earth Day like putting on a party hat and accepting a slice of Baelzebub's birthday cake?
The natural man is an enemy to God. That makes it obvious that the natural world is an enemy to God. Pavement, clear-cutting and strip mining is the finger of Jesus smoothing out all the bumpy wrinkles in the earth (which are symbolic of our wrinkles of sin.)
I know the bible says the earth will look like glass, but they might have meant it was filled with plastic. So throwing away your waterbottles in the bushes means you're making the world a better place.

Anyways, happy belated birthday Earth.

Last day of class

Today is the last day of all my classes at BYU!!! I'm so excited to finally be able to graduate with my bachelors. (it took me long enough!) I won't be walking (I'll save that for my Doctorate). I am trying to see if Kristen will take me on a cool trip like she did with Paige but so far no luck :)
I am looking at two schools in Utah, two in Ohio and one in Cincinnati-these all have good Au.D programs. I first have to take the GRE so I won't start the application process until February or so. Anyways, I am supper excited and have a lot of work that still needs to get done before anything is set in stone.

Conference Sunday

This morning we were eating biscuits and gravy for breakfast when mara looked up at me and said "It was last conference when you died RiRi" during my silence following this statement Joanna reminded us all that because of this Tanya had come down and made pies. She said "RiRi, do you think you could die again, but not really bad this time, just enough to get Tia to come and make pies for conference with us."
So heres to you Tia, the Porters would trade my life for your pies. Thats got to make you feel good.

Library of Congress

I have been staying on the Porters couch for that last few days because it got so bad at my apartment with my "roommate". She has destroyed the kitchen so throughly that I can't get to the sink for a glass of water, instead I have to get water out of the TUB! Aughhh! I talk to the landlord every week and he knows how bad it is and that she has her boyfriend over a lot (she's now 6 months pregnant) and yet I am the one to leave and not her?
Anyways because I have been able to spend this quality time with the Porters I have heard some funny stuff come out of the mouth of these kids, and it's not just Jeremy. The other day Taylor was talking about how movies are rated wrong and he said "You could fill the library of Congress with all the lies the movie industry tells us." He's 12 for crying out loud.

New Book

So I just read a new book that I think you guys might like. It's called "the Thirteenth Tale" It's a fun mystery that is so unusual and evoking that it only took me 2 days to read. Anyways, other than that NOTHING has happened.

The Experiment

I'm going to put a link at the end of this post that I want you to watch. (Its only 5 sec long). However there are a few conditions or rules.
#1. First watch the video and write down what sound you hear.
#2. Play the video again but this time with NO sound and write down what you think he is saying
#3. Play the video again WITH sound but DON"T LOOK at the video. keep you eyes closed and write down what you hear.

Have fun and send me comments on your findings or what you thought of the experiment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFPtc8BVdJk

The Understudy

You know how Shakespeare wrote that "All the worlds a stage and all the men and women merely players."? Well some times I feel like the understudy of a real player. For instance I am spending my whole life in school but will I really ever be able to actually work and be part of a profession? Or how about every sunday when we learn about how to be a good wife and mother...yeah, thats never going to happen. But yet I still have to memorize the lines of life even if I don't ever get to live it.
Enough of the pity party, I know you don't go on blogs to get depressed, that feeling is saved for the St. Jude's commercials. So here is something to make you smile. (you might have to copy and past if it won't let you just click on it.) Have a good day and be glad that your a player. At least you have the potential to win an Oscar.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/boy_s_tragic_death_could_have?utm_source=videoembed

Kristen's day out

So About a week ago Kristen went crazy with the kids and just was not a happy person so Mike told her that she could have a day all to herself. She choose Saturday. Anyways, Kris and I went to the mall around 10:00am and didn't get out of there until 6:00. (we saw a movie as well.) We did some other stuff and just hung out on campus and then watched HGTV until 11:00 when Mike called and asked when she would be home. I was just thinking of all the "girls night out" that DeNae had and I'm not saying she didn't need them, I'm just surprised that Kris with 6 kids does not demand more time for herself.
Point of the story: Celibacy!

This is Jermey urging his older sisters on as they dance. He's a good little coach.