5 months later....

Yep - I'm still alive! I know you must be sick of seeing the same Heimlich story every time you go to my blog. Or, you have stopped going to my blog all together!

I have decided to share some pictures of this summer. We did lots of neat stuff! In May, I went with my two friends down to Kanab, UT. I know it doesn't sound very exciting, but there is a no-kill animal shelter there called "Best Friends Animal Sanctuary" where we volunteered. We spent time helping with the cats and dogs. The show "Dogtown" is filmed there, if you've ever seen it on Animal Planet or whatever channel it's on!

In June, we went to the Scottish Festival with my brother and his family (minus Justine...) I went every year with my Dad, so this is an important tradition for me. Later that month Troy and I flew out to California to visit my sister and her family. We spent the time relaxing by the pool, went to the lake on their boat and played lots of games! It was a good time.

We also managed to go camping 3 times this summer with friends and Troy's dad. I am so glad we did, I love getting out of the city and being in nature. Even if you do get dirty and stinky :)

I hope to keep my blog up to date... we shall see!

CAMPING

Troy and his Dad on the left

Nate and Troy

3rd of July Fireworks in North Salt Lake
Drew & Brandie

Troy, Chloe, Mike

Samantha, Troy, Hailey in CA

Troy and Huckleberry - my sisters cute Basset Hound!

Gotta love this one!

Hailey and I

Troy and I at the Scottish Festival - Thanksgiving Point

Brandie, Drew, Troy - Scottish Festival

With one of the puppies at Best Friends

Me, Rebecca and Sarah at Best Friends

Heimlich Anybody?

I recently visited my sister, Amy in California for her 40th Birthday. We spent a night in Reno, then drove to her house about 1 1/2 hours away in Lincoln, CA. It was a short trip, but it was a blast! My flight home was on March 16th, we took Southwest which made a connection in Las Vegas. Don't ask me why we had to fly south and then north again. ANYWAYS.... when we stopped in Vegas the majority of the people on the plane got off leaving only a handful of us. I was flying home with my brother, Nate and one of my sisters husbands good friends, Jonny. The layover in Vegas was longer than normal because the door in the front had a broken spring that had to be fixed. We started to get hungry during this process, so Jonny decided to get off and get some food and come back on. He brought back a personalized pan pizza from Pizza Hut and offered me a slice.

Nate was sitting in the window seat, I was in the middle and Jonny in the aisle seat. I had my tray table down, Nate made a comment that made me laugh so I started choking on a small piece of pizza. At first I thought it was going to come out after a few coughs, but then I inhaled a bit and lodged it even further! I had no airway whatsoever, not even a whistle. I start to panic, Nate helps me get the tray table up, Jonny gets out of the way so I can get in the aisle way. At this point, the flight attendants realize something is wrong and there was Hank - the Southwest flight attendant that saved my life. He gave me the Heimlich Maneuver 3 times, and at last the piece of pizza came up. It didn't fly out of my mouth like you would think, it just came up and landed on my tongue.

It sounds silly to explain it, and I'm sure there will be jokes down the road about it. But it scared me SO bad, it's never a good feeling when you think you're going to die! It is also a reminder not to take life for granted, and not to laugh while eating pizza.

My Fave Songs

I am stealing this idea from my dear friend, Rebecca. She posted a blog regarding songs that she could listen to over and over that were her favorite songs. They are also songs that are so not cool and you are like - huh? Really, are you serious? I have included a few of my own favorite songs that I would never skip if they came up on shuffle mode on my iPod. They are usually ones I love to belt out to when I am alone at home or in my car. Enjoy! :)

Sailing by Christopher Cross





Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head by BJ Thomas



Never Ending Story by Limahl (it reminds me of my childhood, ok?)




Say My Name - Destiny's Child




Hello by Lionel Richie




If You Don't Know Me By Now by Simply Red




I Belong To You by Lenny Kravitz





Escape (Pina Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes

Eastern Caribbean Cruise - 2009

Wow. It has been awhile since I last blogged. I'm not going to apologize - life just happens!

We closed on our house right before Christmas and moved 2 days after Christmas. What a whirlwind of activities! It was stressful, to say the least. Anyone who has moved knows. We have been in our new home for a month now and we are loving it! There are just a few more rooms that need some work, including a dresser for our bedroom. I don't know how long I can stand living out of boxes for my clothes. The condo is listed and we are hoping to sell this as soon as we can. If we are not having any luck, then we will try and get a renter in there. You never know with how the market is these days!

Two weeks after we moved in, Troy and I headed out to Florida where we departed on our 7 day Eastern Caribbean Cruise. We had a blast! We had been to this part of the world before on a cruise, but we visited a couple of new islands we had never been to. Troy has been writing about some of our adventures, you should check out his blog! Our itinerary was Princess Cays on Eleuthera Island (Bahamas), St. Maarten, St. Thomas (we took a ferry from here to St. John and turned out to be our favorite island this trip) and last but not least, Grand Turk. The weather was great - except for a scare I had the first night on the cruise, which Troy also mentions in one of his stories. I have a wild imagination and my mind comes up with so many different scenarios. I am paranoid, I know :)

I was going to add some photos, but looks like Troy put all my favorites on his blog. Thanks Troy! Here is one to spice up the entry:

Turk Bay - St. John. I want to go back one day!

New House and Mini-Vacation

So I mentioned briefly in my last post that Troy and I bought a house. We are so excited! We are supposed to (crossing my fingers) close on it this week. Our first intention was to move in the weekend before Christmas (i.e. next weekend) but I think we are going to spend Christmas for the last time in our condo and move the weekend after Christmas. I wish I had saved some photos of it! It is a twin home in Taylorsville, right off of 48th South and 740 West - right on the border of Murray and Taylorsville. It's in a cul-de-sac and there are horses behind our fence. We have a yard (that's a first for me!) and a dishwasher - which we have been living without for over 3 years now. It's 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bath, 1 car garage AND a carport. WAHOO!

Last weekend I was able to fly out with my mom to see my sister and her family in California. They live right outside of Sacramento in a town called Lincoln. Troy couldn't make it this trip, he had band practice for his work Christmas party. We had a great and relaxing time! I played games with my nieces and nephew, went to see "Twilight" in a very expensive California movie theater, met my sisters new Basset Hound named Huckleberry and went shopping with my sister and mom. Oh, and let's not forget In N Out Burger! MMMMMM.... Here a few photos of my trip below.

Cameron and Huckleberry

Me, Mom and Huckleberry

Me, Cameron & Grandma

Grandma, Hailey & Aunt Katie

Samantha & Aunt Katie

Steve with his Christmas present from Troy and I - a Steelers Wreath!

The Balli Family Christmas Tree

Amy, Mom & Katie

Huck and Daddy watching t.v.

Sisters

Sitting on Santa's (Steve's) Lap! :)

We LOVE Christmas!!

Almost 1 month later...

This will be short and sweet. I know my page is still Thanksgiving themed, this will be changed soon! Not to worry. Life has been a whirlwind for me lately, so my blogging has come to a halt. Between buying a new home and selling my old one, Christmas, a vacation to my sisters and appointments with doctors regarding babies - I have had little time!

Stay tuned....

Disney and NKOTB

I have had the best weekend! Last Friday I had the chance to take my niece, Chloe to see Disney on Ice for an early birthday present. I was also secretly excited to go myself, so it was also a good cover-up to go with a child because no one thought I actually wanted to go. I ended up loving it in all its cheesiness. My favorite part of the show was Pinnochio and I think Chloe liked all of the princesses the best :) Here are a few pics from the night, all I had was my camera phone but they are still fun!

The princess herself

Saturday night I had the time of my life at the New Kids On The Block concert. I went with my friends Rebecca, Jessica & Rhianne and had a killer time! Here is a little background with me and NKOTB. I first discovered them at the early age of 11 years old and we were just about to move to Germany. I fell in love with them and had a major crush on Joey McIntyre. I went on to buy t-shirts, pins, had posters of them as wallpaper in my room and even joined their fan club! I had all of their tapes, even the Christmas album. So going to this concert was a mix of 2 things for me. One - that they were back together after 15 years and it was funny that they were doing shows. Two - that all I wanted when I was a pre-teen was to go to one of their shows and I was able to fulfill my childhood dream. And that is really something to me! The crazy thing is, they were all in great shape, still had great dance moves AND they sounded exactly like they did in 1990. Even their new songs are awesome. Not to mention that a few of them became even more attractive over the years. Time treated them well, I must say! No wonder Donnie Wahlberg's brother made it on my top 10 :) The place was full of late 20's, thirty-something women screaming and wearing their old New Kids shirts (that I wished I had kept, trust me!). I loved singing all of the words I used to sing over and over to my tapes back before CD's. It really took me back to those days that I have almost forgotten.

Back in the day.....look at that hair!

Lookin' good today!

One of my favorite songs:

Please Don't Go Girl