BuStEr BuRgEr [[6x6 challenge]]

So at this little burger joint called Buster Burger... they have this thing called the Burger Challenge.. and the wall of fame.

if you eat a 4x4, 5x5,6x6,7x7,8x8,9x9,10x10 in a certain amount of time... you get your picture on the wall. what it is is.... 4 patties (and buns) X 4 pieces of cheese.... 5 patties X5 pieces of cheese... and so on.

Sterling felt up for the challenge. he wanted to start with a 6x6. so he ordered up.

that was one massive massive massive burger.

set the timer... and he was off.

almost one patty left.

done in 7 minutes and 36 seconds.

a 6pack... replaced by a 6X6

i'm proud of you... for what its worth. (: (:

packin up-packin up- packin up

Packin up- Movin out.

Since everything is sooooo crazy right now with my finals and moving and easter weekend, we moved the majority of our stuff to the storage unit last weekend.

Dishes, couch, bed, bookshelves, shelves, tv stand, dresser, side tables, coffee table, stools, decorations, frames.... even non-perishable food... seriously

we are eating off of our paper plates with plastic silverware... and haven't gone grocery shopping in almost 6 weeks (besides milk and eggs) in attempts to clear out our whole freezer and fridge of ALL the stuff we have.

[[we go through 5 dozen eggs in a week... no joke.. boil em up and we eat like 6 egg white's each aday.]] nom nom nom.

Porsche was LOVING moving day. climbing onto things... into things... around things... into open cupboards and drawers...boxes... bowls... under blankets... seriously.. everywhere.

spot porsche

(HINT: she climbed on top of the mattress.. and there she took a loooonnnnng cat nap)

our empty bedroom.. (there is no dresser in it now)

and we are sleeping on an air mattress. for real.

everything you see in this picture is now in storage.. the only thing in our living room is a tv

sterling just put our mattress in the living room... because apparently we're going to build a fort tonight? with what... i don't know.

our cute bathroom that is now empty.

even our shower curtain (minus the crap clear one)

Porsche enjoying me packing up the mixing bowls for storage.

enjoying a box

this is our dear friend pet squishy. and our bamboo plant.

porsche was enjoying one last drink from her friend's tank...

we are letting my sister morgan fish-sit for the summer. (:

tired after moving day (:

The sticker above our bed.

empty lonely room.

my strong handsome buff moving-man husband. (: at his finest.

in our mess of an apartment.

love him.

so this is a whole other story.

i just didn't want to do another blog post

on monday night this week... I had SOOO much dang homework for finals...

a ton of final essays that were do and a lot of just plain ol crapola for school. arrrrggghhh

that day... i woke up at 5am to start moving everything. (moving day)

that night i had an out of class assignment we had to go to... (we went to an Alcoholic's Anonymous meeting) ;)

we went home.. sterling had a massive headache so i laid on the couch with him for a while watching a show and putting a bag of frozen corn on his head.

he went to bed at 10:30pm

and i stayed up.

2 bowls of cereal, 2 bowls of green beans, 1 bowl of broccoli, and a whole lot of water later... it was 5am.

yes ladies and gentlemen.. i had not gone to sleep. I had class at 7am, and would ya believe it? our printer was out of ink. so i went in and got ready for school, and drove to my mom's house in Draper. Printed it off and drove to school...

The following picture is at 4:05 am. Porsche wasn't getting enough attention apparently, and over the course of the night she kept coming and sitting on my hands on the laptop or on my chest. This time.. she kept her face in front of my face until i'd acknowledge her.

spoiled- attention-a-holic cat.

And THIS... is me at 7pm the following evening. 36 hours without sleep.

quite exhausted.

butttt. i went to bed around 11 and woke up the next day at 6:30 all refreshed for the day.

the end.

idaho

so.

we went up to idaho last weekend so we could visit my family (and shaily) before we moved to CALI.

we thought the last trip was going to be our last time there... but alas... stuff happens and plans change. So we drove up after class on thursday (which... sterling went with me to. my teachers quite like him it seems. more than me. talkative little smart booger.)

We got up there and only my dad and shirley knew we were coming to visit. so we walked in and surprised Shaily and everyone else (: It was really fun getting to visit with everyone for a few days.

We watched TV with Shaily, played games, i painted her toenails, she painted my fingernails, we went to visit my grandma... played card games, we got an ice-cream cone at DQ, got lost in the idaho farmlands, helped jake work on his BAJA truck, hot-tubbed with jake and his girlfriend(?), went to lunch with my dad and jake at red-robbin... and a lot more things that i'm probably forgetting. but we had a really fun time. And... the only picutres I got to document the event were of me and Sheyenne.

[[Shaily refused to be photographed]]

my beautiful little 9 year old sister. (:

the end.

...

we.

.all

have.

.stories

we'll.

.never

tell.

APRIL 14th

last thursday.

ahem. was the day that i met sterling. one year ago.

365 days

• the last 31,536,000 seconds~~525,600 minutes~~8760 hours have been the best of my whole entire life.
• a little re-cap of how it went down.
• *calaigh seeing sterling walking into her work* "DANNNNNNNG-GINA! i'll help him.
• Sterling: *holding a bag of take-out food* hey, do you know where brittany is?
• Calaigh: yeah.... follow me. i'll find her. you're a really nice boyfriend for bringing her some lunch!
• Sterling: WHAT?? haha i'm not her boyfriend. i'm her older brother.
• Calaigh: ohhhh ARRRREEE you? *mischeivious smile*
• **calaigh walks back to the nurses station.**....."Have you guys even SEEN how hot Brittany's brother is!!? Like really.. do you guys even KNOW?!!!!?"

[[[and thats how it all began]]]

(:

Here's to you, baby-pie ----- and mannnnnny more.

dAtE NiGhT.concert

My awesome husband surprised me with tickets to one of my favorite bands "a rocket to the moon".

The concert was a.m.a.z.i.n.g even the opening bands were awesome!

The bands were:

Valencia

Anarbor

RunnerRunner [[i especially love these guys]]

A Rocket To The Moon

(:

we had fun being groupies after each band... and going back and taking pics with each of the band members. (:

(this one is for you brittany- sterling says "hardcore hardcore hardcore hardcore"

The lead singer jumped into the crowd and crowd surfed... it wasn't till we got a picture with him after that i was SOOOO grateful he didn't come over us. his shirt was seriously dripping wet. after the picture i went to the bathroom and washed my hands like 5 times. i feel bad for the people who had to hold him up... barfff.

MY FAVORITE. . .

even though they didn't sing my favorite song (i'll be your sunset) i had starry-glazed over eyes the whollllle time

During this song... i was swaying back and forth with my eyes closed and a big smile on my face.

happppppppiest feeling ever.

i love concerts.

Thanks for the amazing date night my lover!!!

HEY YOU.

"yes, you. stop being unhappy with yourself, you are perfect. stop wishing you looked like someone else or wishing people liked you as much as they like someone else or wishing people liked you as much as they like someone else. stop trying to get attention from those who hurt you. stop hating your body, your face, your personality, your quirks ... love them. without those things you wouldn't be you. and why would you want to be anyone else? be confident with who you are. smile. it'll draw people in. if anyone hates on you because you are happy with yourself then turn your back and say screw it. my happiness will not depend on others anymore. i'm happy because i love who i am. i love my flaws. i love my imperfections. they make me me. and 'me' is pretty amazing."

OPTIMISIM is key.

if you expect the worst,

the worst will happen.

You are your own STRESS, your own ANGER,

your own SADNESS & FRUSTRATION

if you let things bother you, ...they WILL

so don't let them.

just be happy! (:

NOTHING in life is easy,

so make the best of all of it.

don't dwell on the negatives

optimism is key.

life recently

well, as most everyone knows.. its been a crazy crazy week.

and thus-

the posting on our life has not appeared for a while. so.. i shall give a quick recap.

Currently, Sterling is in Nevada until this Sunday on a sale's trip. Call me weird.. I wasn't looking forward to him leaving... but I was looking forward to the chance to deep clean our enttttiiirrrree apartment. I don't like cleaning unless I'm alone for some reason.. but really... since probably 8:30 this morning (until now, when i sat to take a breath) I've been seriously sweating my brains out. And honestly truly... i'm getting the biggest rush from it? haha is it strange to get a high from loving to be cleaning? (NO its not the cleaning chemicals). its just an endorphin rush for some reason. yet... i despise putting dishes away from the dishwasher and putting laundry away... (grr. gotta do that, sometime today.) So today's plan:: getting down and dirty with the duster, rubber gloves, clorox, windex, 409 and the Lysol disinfecting wipes. oh... and who could forget about my love of the vacuum. I'll save the best for last. nothing better than a clean floor

i'll stop there before some people really get a little freaked out? if they aren't already.

the last post before shaily's accident was Sterling's birthday... so (forgive my memory) I'm going to try and remember the things that have gone on since then.

The week of Sterling's birthday... we babysat my siblings for 4 days while my parents decided to ditch out and go to mehiko. It was pretty fun, alright. Going from just the two of us- to taking care of 4 sugar-crazed hyperactive kids... was... birth control. for lack of a better word.

No, but really, it was fun. we had fun doing homework with them, getting them up and ready for school, breakfast, packing lunch bags, and taking them.. helping in a couple of their classes, seeing how smart they are, picking them up from school, piano and violin practices, family night, taking them to get frozen yogurt as a surprise, going out to dinner... [which ended up being crazy.. -- for 4 kids.. we ended up going to Burger King, Cafe Rio, and THEN zupas. because no one wanted what the other did, and no one would agree. except morgan who was Switzerland] chores, making a cake, helping with book reports, playing basketball outside, corporal punishments...[[ wait... what? ]] basically we are the best babysitters ever.

Andrea took over for us on Wednesday.. she came over with her naked cat. the kids loved it. that won them over for best babysitter award. whatevs. we're cooler.

My mom and Rich-winter took us to the JAZZ vs LAKERS game for sterling's birthday. My mom claimed that she felt bad she missed his bday while she was in Mexico scuba diving.. but we don't believe that. (the game made up for it. ;) ). Before the game we went to dinner and of course they should have saw it coming, but we had to get an April fool's joke in. So before they picked us up, we printed off an ultrasound picture from the internet (you can already see where this is going). I made them a hand made, cute card and taped the picture on the inside. It said TO: GRANDMA AND GRANDPA MAXWELL- WORLDS BEST GRANDPARENTS!!

then it said something to the effect of... i'm 10 weeks along, but don't say anything! we want to keep it a secret! love you guys!

[[[[[and just a quick fore-word... Its April Fool's day... right? and everyone knows to just expect some crazy made up lie or joke to be played on them. Everyone takes that gullible side for at least the day... or they try to. So the point is.. we were making up this whole plan on how we'll have to convince my mom all night, because we knew she would just call us out on it immediately saying "oh HA. HA. guys. NICCCCE try." so we had made up doctors visits and dates memorized, due dates calculated, doctors names and everything. lol. we were TOTALLY prepared to have to convince her, and we were going to let it go alllll night then tell them when they dropped us off april fool's! well.. that was our plan. ]]]]]

So while we were eating dinner at Rumbi's, my mom kept looking at me saying "why are you smiling like that? why are you being so smug? what aren't you telling me!? tell me RIGHT NOW.. what are you guys up to???" i was all.. oh crap.. she already knows a joke is coming. so a couple minutes later, I pulled out the card and gave it to them.

She opened it... "looked up with tears in her eyes and screamed. literally. "YAYYYYYY! I KNEW it!! i knew something was up!! oh YAYYYY!! CONGRATTTTSSS guys!! *gives us hugs over the table* I'm going to be a grandma!! we're grandparents!!!! *crying*"

THIS. ladies and gentlemen.. was the point where i glance at sterling with DEER IN THE HEADLIGHTS eyes (while my mom was hugging rich) and whisper "ohhh crap. i'm not telling her. you tell her.."

i knew immediately i couldn't keep this going all night. she was sooo excited and i felt so bad. hahahahahahahaha.

Rich says... isn't it april fool's day??

My mom: "yeah, but this isn't a joke.. pauses.. wait... its not, right? is this a JOKE??? *looks down with a pouty face/ crumples picture and card* i hate you."

hey... at least we know what her potential reaction will be when that time really comes. lol

seriously NOT what we were prepared for AT ALL.

A couple days ago, Sterling and I spent from waking (9ish am) till about 5pm cleaning and packing up most of our apartment and making like 4-5 trips to the storage unit and also the DI. We packed up all of the things we won't need in the next 2 1/2 weeks and for all of summer. Leaving only the big furniture, bookshelves, tv, couch, dresser, bed... other than that.. everything including decorations frames, rugs, and even some kitchen stuff is all packed. I went through my closet and sifted out probably more than half my shirts and had my sister morgan come rummage through a MASSSIVE pile of clothes, shoes, jewelry and such to take for herself. I took the rest to Plato's closet... got 30 bucks, then took the leftovers of that to the DI.

Seriously a crazy day. but I feel good about getting a lot of it all packed early, rather than all within the same week. because that week is my finals week, and i'll be going crazy as it is.

So.. maybe you can see how i'm loving cleaning right now. the apartment is basically empty, makes it look reallllly clean. nothing on the shelves, or the coffee table, and i can vacuum most the ENTIRE floor!!!!.. ok i can admit the vacuuming thing might be an unhealthy obsession. Sterling thinks so at least. My favorite is vacuuming the whole floor of the whole apartment and just laying on the floor after. haha

that night- Tahnee and Brett and little chubby Kaden came over and Tahnee whipped up her amazing lettuce wraps with ground turkey, veggies, and PLUMMM sauce. mmmm. so amazing. we watched a movie and played games. Sequence, catch phrase, and guestures. . we were seriously having so much fun. those last two games got pretty intense!! and Kaden was good and was watching us all as we were acting like loonies acting things out. They left around 11 and I was up until about 2:30am doing stupid homework then was up at 6am for classes. stupid idiot school.

i mean.. school is great. and i love that i'm furthering my education, and I encourage all young people to go to college and obtain their degree of knowledge... haaaaaaaa. idiot.

ok i'm done.

.and to all a good day.

ShAiLy's AcCiDeNt

[[[I will continue putting updates onto this same post at the bottom.]]]

Most recent update: Thursday (sorry it took so long)

..This is my gorgeous little sister Shaily..

Last night (early sunday morning) she got in a horrible car accident.

I woke up to Sterling's phone ringing at 3:30am. I got up and it stopped so I looked at my phone and I had a text and missed calls from my family in Idaho. Same with Sterling's phone.

The only things I was told were that she ruptured her spleen, shattered her pelvis along with damage to her lungs, leg and shoulders she was in the ICU, they didn't know the extent of the damage and her internal bleeding, and that they might have to fly her to Salt Lake to Primary Children's Hospital. I could in no way fall back asleep after hearing all of that. I had Sterling say the prayer for both of us, because i couldn't hold it together.. I completely lost it.

from 4am to probably 7am i didn't hear anything.. its so hard being so far away from my family in Idaho at times like these. so I've been awake since that first call, praying for her, crying, and asking for prayers.

Currently, (as of about 11am) they are still working and focused on stabilizing her spleen to stop the bleeding, and making plans to rebuild her pelvis/hips. (thats the latest news I've heard)

We love this girl to absolutely indescribable amounts. She is such a fun, awesome and sweet sister to have (: Thanks everyone for the continued prayers. They definitely mean so much to our family. (: x0x0

[[::::UPDATES::::]]

(the only thing I have to go off of is phone calls and texts from my family in idaho, since I can't be up there)

SUNDAY

11:20am- "her bleeding seems controlled, surgeoun said they will not go in for surgery today because of all the swelling and the bleeding from her spleen. Probably will go in to rebuild her pelvis tomorrow. "

-I asked if she was awake- "She is in and out of it.."

5:30pm- "They are going to go in within the next 30 minutes and put a filter in her artery so she doesn't get blood clots that will go to her brain or lungs, will take about an hour to do- and she won't be all the way out for it"

5:30pm- "She is in rough shape, but talking in and out- lots of breaks. Surgeon will be here after 8 and will decide if she is to stay here or if they will send her to Primary Children's"

7:15pm- "they finished putting the filter in her artery, it went ok. They also found a bad tear in her kidney, the doctor wants to try and let it heal itself with time."

9:00pm- "Will probably stay in idaho, won't be able to do the surgery tomorrow... we'll know then. seems more positive now"

Monday

7:30am- "stable still, should know later today what day operation/ surgery will be. She seems to be alert at times if pain is not to bad."

Tuesday

Ok a lot of these updates I am about to post are really things I learned yesterday, but didn't have time to post onto here.

My Step-Mom Shirley posted this for everyone to see: So you all have the story straight...Shailys injuries are...her pelvis is crushed and her spleen has been bleeding. Her right kidney has a tear and her lungs are pretty bruised. She is in extreme pain and is on the highest legal dose of pain meds every ten minutes. They are watching the bleeding in her spleen very close. If all the tests go well, then today, in the late afternoon, she will under go surgery. (3-5 hours). First the will drain all of the pooled blood in her abdomin then look more at the internal organs and double check the spleen. If everything looks ok, then they will pin-screw-plate and rod her pelvis back together. This is going to be a very long hard road ahead of her.

She thanks and we thank you all for your prayers

I talked on the phone with my dad for a couple hours about everything and it seems like it is going to be a pretty intense surgery, but they are really positive about it. He said that she has over 30 breaks total in her body and her leg is separated completely from the hip where it should be. She is in a huge amount of pain, as you can probably imagine.. So, Later this afternoon she will go through a really long intense surgery to re-build her pelvis/ hips and flush the body out of all the dead blood and dead/ damaged muscle tissues, and get a last look at her spleen before moving onto the operation.

My dad wants everyone to know how much they are appreciated for all of the prayers, thoughts and love... and that they all can really be felt by her and the family through all of this. It really really means a lot.

Thursday

Sorry that it has taken me so long to post.. Things have been crazy around my house. We are in the process of packing up to move to california... but i'll save that for a separate post.

shaily. She went through her operation on the 5th.. and I believe it was somewhere between 4-5 hours long.

My dad said that she is sleeping a lot because she had been (might still be?) on the highest legal dose of pain meds. He said that the surgery went good. She has a lot of pins, screws, and rods. and a couple are external.

She got 2 units of blood last night, and she has had a really high fever for the last few days.

She had her first physical therapy session today and she sat up on the edge of the bed today for a tiny bit and did great... even though it hurt her really bad. it wiped her out.

I'm so proud of her for how so so very strong she is and what a tough girl she has been through this whole process. She told the doctor that it did feel good to be up, and that she wants to do more.

She moved from the Intensive Care Unit onto a different floor today where she has a private room now. Still sleeps most of the time and is tired so much. BUT she is SUCH a trooper, and this is nothing that any 15 year old in the world would want right before summer-time. But I really love this girl.

again- thanks everyone for the concern and prayers.

i get multiple multiple texts and calls a day asking how she is doing, and about her progress. People that haven't even ever met her are asking and saying she is constantly in their prayers.

I am so so lucky to have such an amazing group of family and friends and such a tight-knit support through all of them.

To all of you who are reading this because you are consistently checking up on my little sister:

i love you all, and I know Shaily can feel the prayers. She is very strong and will kick this trial in the butt.