Something Closer to my heart

It has been over a year since I have posted anything to this blog for many reasons. Each time I sat down to put anything on here it was usually negative and depressing and or sad and I didn't want the tone of my blog to be that way so it was just blank. But I am going to turn over a new leaf and try something out of my comfort zone. As most of my family know, I write poetry to express my emotions and cope with my feelings and I guess I just like to as well. I will admit I have not the range of skills my sister Denise posseses, but I am going to post a poem I wrote the other night while I was up and couldn't sleep (aka the story of my life). Here goes:

Green Eyes

A girl with wavy curls

of black hair down her back

and emerald green eyes

boring deep into my soul-

haunts me

each night

I am sleepwalking I say

please wake me up

from this unending

task of determening

reality

and a fantasy world.

She has creamy white skin

and a splash of freckles over her nose.

I can't help but wonder if she is from

my past--some relative I have met

in a time before-

or is she someone I will meet

in the future-

someone who is part me

part him.

Is this just silly thoughts that come

to me late at night to comfort me

when I am oh so lonely_

whomever she is-

for now, she is mine.

She turns and looks at me

just as the sun is rising at her back-

-and she smiles

And in that smile I see

Love

-Dawn Cooper Volkman

Dad Volkman

My father-in-law passed away suddenly over the weekend. We are in deep sorrow. Please keep the Volkman family in your prayers. Thank you to those who have already expressed their love and concern for the family. We love you Dad and will miss you more than words can express.

A Giveaway you should check out...

Jaime from The Dress Up Drawer is giving away a Seventh Generation Healthy Home Starter Kit and thought y'all should know about it. She also makes and sells these adorable LDS Super Capes for little kids. So Cute. Her blog is http://thedressupdrawer.blogspot.com . The Giveaway goes until May 17th and will be announced May 19.

What's cooking tonight

I just got done enjoying our dinner tonight and thought I'd post this recipe. It is really easy and simple, and one of my very favorite meals to make/eat/enjoy.

Cheese Manicotti Shells

1 pkg. manicotti shells
1 15 oz. ricotta cheese
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesean cheese
1 egg
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
2 cups spaghetti sauce

Prepare pasta as directed; drain. Rinse with cold water, drain and arrange in single layer to fill. Meanwhile, mix ricotta cheese, 1 to 1 1/2 cups of the mozzarella cheese, 1/4 cup parmesean cheese, the egg, parsley, salt and pepper and nutmeg. Spoon mixture into manicotti shells using at least 1/3 cup per shell. Place filled manicotti shells in a single layer in a greased 13x9 inch baking pan. Pour spaghetti sauce over manicotti shells. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2-1 cup mozzarella cheese and 1/4 cup parmesean.

Bake at 350 for 35 minutes. Serves 4-6

P.S. Variation: I used to have a boyfriend from high school who made these filled with chicken tenders. Those are also good.

Enjoy!

Our Easter Vacation

This year for Easter we went to Gothenburg, Nebraska with Chase's family to visit his Grandma Volkman and Aunts and Uncles and cousins and other relatives. I've been back to Nebraska two times before so I knew what a long trip driving was going to be. The family seems to be cursed when driving back there. The weather has been awful every time we go there. Sure enough this year we had some awful snow storms. We left at 5:00 am Thursday and planned on getting there in about 12 hours later. We basically had bad weather once we got into Ogden canyon on I-80 and continued until Laramie Wyoming. I have been having some fun health problems (kidney stones, ulcers) so we were about out of Laramie when I mentioned to Ken (my dad in law) that I needed to stop and get my stomach medication out of the trunk because I was having some major pain and nausea. Ken asked if I could wait another 1/2 hour and I said sure. About two minutes later there was an off ramp and he suddenly said, "I think we should get off here and we can stop and get your meds". So we got on the off ramp. We saw on the freeway up ahead all of these cars stopped. We pulled into a Walmart and checked the radio for weather updates. It said that I-80 was closed from Laramie to Cheyene. My dad must have been inspired because we would have been stopped on the freeway with no place to get off.

So we waited. And waited. And waited. For about 3 hours. Still not open. Finally Ken and Bev decided we'd just have to get a hotel because the Walmart employees said that sometimes the road stays closed overnight. I was so glad they made that decision. I was going crazy sitting in the car, I finally had Chase and I go inside the Walmart to wait because I was clausterphobic in the car. Chase's request was a pool because we happened to bring our swimming suits. We found a nice Best Western and got two rooms for Ken and Bev, Trevor and Leilani, Zach and Chase and I. Zach stayed with Chase and I and Trev and Lei stayed with the 'rents. We settled in and went to dinner at Godfather's Pizza (ok but not the best) and then came back and got in the pool and hot tub. I swam some laps to work off the pizza then got a stomachache (awesome) and then got into the hot tub. Trev and Zach got in the hot tub with us as well and we relaxed after a stressful day. The Best Western had a nice continental breakfast the next morning and we left at about six the next morning.

Thankfully the road was open and we got into North Platte at around Noon to meet with Aunt Darla at the mall. Us girls went shopping. The boys continued on to Gothenburg. We had a good time. Eventhough Lei is my sis-in-law, we had never been shopping together. I really enjoyed it. She had a really good honest opinion on the clothes I tried on. The mall was smaller than the Logan one but it did have a Maurices, Vanity, Claires, B&B Works and Buckle (my not so fav store). Then we went and ate at Applebee's. So good. We then headed to Gothenburg.

We all stayed at Aunt Darla's house. That night we played some games-and went to bed. The next day the whole family met at Grandma Volkman's assisted living home and had lunch. We had a good time visiting and then they kicked us out at 2 pm because they were having bingo for the old folks. Geez, can't they wait? We retired back to Aunt Darla's house and later Chase's Uncle Dave and his family went to their Catholic Easter services, we played more games. Chase and I took a nice long nap during the day as well. I wasn't feeling all that great that day.

Easter morning we awoke to Aunt Darla and Uncle LaMont gone to their church services so we got ready and got online to listen to our LDS General Conference. There were some really nice talks. When they got back, we left for cousin Keri's house for Easter Lunch. I was feeling so nauseated and sick, I hardly ate anything but it looked very good. The weather was so sunny and hot. Chase, Trev and Lei all ended up getting sunburned. I knew my complexion. I didn't have sunscreen but I kept in the shade and only ended up with my scalp burned a little bit.

After the food had settled, we went across the street to the park for an Easter egg hunt. There were only two kids and the rest were adults. Aunt Darla had one $50 egg and 2 $20 eggs. I sure wanted one of those but didn't get one. Trev got one $20 egg ( the lucky kid) and I ended up with blisters on my heels from wearing my new flats and running in them.

I was still not feeling good so Ken and Bev and Darla and LaMont went on a motorcyle ride that evening while Zach, Trevor and Leilani and cousin Keri and Corry went to see Clash of the Titans. Chase and I and Lexi(Trevor and Lei's dog had to come along with us) stayed at Darla's house and rented The Blind Side (such a good movie). The next morning we got up and left at 5:30 am.

Sure enough- bad weather again. No road closures though. We got back at 5 pm and we were so tired. I am still recovering. I missed my family but it was nice to see our relatives in Nebraska. It was good to see Grandma, she is so sweet. I miss seeing all of our relatives.

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter! Sorry for the long post.

Happy 3 years for us!

Isn't he just adorable?
I know its a couple days early but just wanted to post about our 3 year anniversary. I have the best husband ever and I am so happy he picked me. Thank you honey. I love you and thank you for making me smile for our 5 years together. I hope we have many many more years to come of laughter and fun. Decided to post early because we will be gone on our actual anniversary up to Lava Hot Springs and Pocatello Idaho for a couple of days. I can't wait to just get away for a little bit.

There were some great memories from that day and some not so great things- mostly great though. At our reception our waterfall behind us broke and started shooting water everywhere- yep that was fun. I actually was pretty calm about it. That was the worst thing that happened that day thank goodness.

We had the most amazing day and I am so thankful to all of our families and friends who made our day special. It truly was so wonderful. I am truly blessed to have Chase and great family.

Check it out...

Hey my friend Shelayna is doing a Rachel Ray Stoneware Giveaway over on her website. You should definitely check it out. This set is so adorable. The website is http://shelblogs.blogspot.com

Go there if you please!

Thank you!

Have a fabulous day!

The Winner Is...

Ok I was down in SLC helping my sister and haven't been able to draw for the drawing yet. I am sorry that this is a day late.

I ended up with 56 entries. I went on over to random.org and the winning number is

#46 which is Spamgirl said...
tweeted AND facebooked entry #3 :)

Congratulations Spamgirl! You have until Wednesday February 24 to contact me, I will also try to email you since you left your email address.

Thank you to everyone who entered. I promise to do another drawing soon.

Have a Wonderful Day!

Hello Fellow Bloggers...My First Giveaway

First of all I would like to welcome my fellow swap-bot partners from the best swapping website ever. If you don't know about this website, you should seriously check it out. It is a website about a group of people that swap anything and everything from postcards to brighten your day to crafts to small packages to pen pal snail mail swaps. It is a lot of fun and I enjoy it immensely. The website is http://www.swap-bot.com.

I hope everyone enjoyed Valentine's Day. My husband was so sweet to me although he claims that this holiday is just made up to spend money and for stores to make money. Which may be true, but who can argue with a day just about Love, right? My husband got me something sparkly. And that was totally a suprise. Oh what a sweet husband I have.

For those that are visiting me here for the first time I will tell a little about myself. I am in my early 20s and have been married for 3 years in March. What a wonderful day. Here is a pic of me and my hubby on that day:



I enjoy crafts like sewing, embroidery, scrapbooking, painting, and sketching. I also love to read. That is my number 1 hobby. You will usually find me ignoring home chores to read instead. My husband will be watching TV and I will be reading next to him on the couch. One of my favorite series is the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. She is such an amazing author and this series is excellent. I also have enjoyed Juliet Marillier's Sevenwaters Trilogy. She is also a very good author. I also like to write poetry. I don't know if I'm any good. But that is also a hobby of mine. I like to blog (obviously). I love the outdoors. I love to hike and hunt with my family and husband. My sister and mom wonder why in the world I hunt but I do enjoy it. I like to play and watch sports like basketball, baseball/softball and volleyball. I ran track in high school and that was fun. I wasn't the best at it but I still enjoyed pushing myself and getting a great workout. If you know me you will also know I love Pepsi. It is my guilty pleasure. So bad. Oh well. Maybe one day soon I can quit you. My hubby and I also like to watch movies together. He will even sometimes watch chick flicks with me. How awesome is that. And yes, he did go and see Twilight and New Moon with me and didn't sleep through it.

I work part time in retail at a totally awesome store. I like it and I like the people I work with. I am not currently attending school right now but I want to go back and finish soon. Right now I am thinking about majoring in English since I enjoy reading and writing. Or maybe something in the Healthcare field. I don't know. We have one cat named Tinkerbell. She is a little devil of a cat. She is also very fat. No kids yet but we are hoping soon :) -someday in the next year or two we can have them.

**This past weekend we also got to celebrate at my Dad's Retirement party. He is truly an amazing father and has accomplished much in his life. He has worked very hard to provide for his family and he is also one of the most inspiring people I've met. He has done so much with running and cycling that most people would just be amazed at how well in shape he is at his age now. He has been running and cycling for around 30 years now. I have fond memories of he and I together fishing or him teaching me how to drive (what patience) as well as his jokes he always makes that you aren't expecting. Here is a picture of my hubby, me and my Dad at my husband's birthday a couple years ago. Dad I am so proud of you and all of your accomplishments. I love you!



Now to the Giveaway!

I thought to celebrate getting possibly 10 new blog friends from Swap-bot (and more), I should give something away. Hmmm...what to give away? Oh yeah. How about some Mary Kay? Since this is my first giveaway I am hoping to get some new people to check out my blog. This giveaway is open to anyone 18 or older around the world so you are eligible if you live on Earth. Woo-hoo!

It is the Mary Kay Winterberry Gift Set. This set includes a 2 oz. body mist, 3 oz. body wash, and 2 oz body butter. This fragrance smells so yummy. And it comes in a cute mesh zip bag. It retails at $26!




Now here is how you can win this:

For one entry: Write your name. Easy Peasy.

For another five entries: Email 5 of your friends about this giveaway and come back and tell me you emailed them or post on your own blog about this giveaway and then come back and leave a comment with your link to your blog.

For another three entries please Facebook or Twitter about this giveaway. Write: I just entered to win a Mary Kay Winterberry Gift Set at http://dawnandchase.blogspot.com you can too!

For one last entry: please follow my blog and comment that you are a follower.

So you have a total of 10 entries you can get.

You have until Midnight on Sunday February 21 to enter. The winner will be randomly chosen at random.org and I will announce the winner on Monday February 22. If you are the winner please contact me at cooptothehoop@hotmail.com and let me know where I need to ship this set to. If I don't hear from you by Wednesday February 24 I will have to pick another winner. Hope you win!

I am hoping to start doing a giveaway about once a month so check back on this blog to see what I will be giving away next.

Christmas Tales and goals for the New Year

Well Christmas has come and gone and Chase and I had a wonderful year again with our families and each other. The Sunday before Christmas Chase and I went out to Clarkston to go to church and listen to the annual Christmas Cantada. It was so beautiful and spiritual. I always love going home to my home ward that I grew up in and seeing all of the people I know and talking with all of them.

Other highlights were on Christmas Eve, Chase and I went to his parents home and celebrated with them. We had a very yummy large dinner with ham and salads and Texas Roadhouse rolls (Thanks Lei). We made gingerbread houses and decorated them. Trev and Lei really wanted to do that just because they like to laugh at Chase and I trying to work together and arguing all the way while doing it. We each try to direct the other and think our own plan is the best. Trev and Lei made one together and then Zach and Bev, and Chase and I. I'm pretty sure that Trev and Lei's was the best one.
Next, we played The Beatles Rock Band. I loved it! I absolutely love the Beatles so I knew all of the songs and it was the funnest game ever.
We also opened presents from each other and we got spoiled. Chase's parents suprised us with a flat screen 32" TV. It was awesome. We had no idea. Now I will never get Chase away from the TV.

Chase and I also opened each other's presents while there. We got some fun things. I think I was more happy with what I got Chase than he was really. I suprised him with a Car CD player because the Galant he drives around doesn't have a CD player only a Tape player that doesn't play tapes just the radio. Oh well. I tried. I got some things for the house and that was nice.



On Christmas Day we slept in late and I got up and fixed pancakes and eggs (no bacon because it would make my hair stink, although I had some in the fridge) and gave Chase some nice breakfast. Then we got ready to go eat at My Grandparents house. We had ham and funeral potatoes and stuffed mushrooms and salads and homeade rolls and my grandmas best ever punch. Most of the cousins were there along with all of my brothers and sisters except Dan because he had to fly :( But Holly and the girls were there. We did get to see Dan on the 23rd though and sing some Christmas songs around the piano. We had a nice visit with everyone and opened gifts again from Grandma and Grandpa Clark. Darren and Ericka and the boys came down and it was so nice to see them because it had been a long time since we had seen them.

Later that afternoon we went to my parents house and visited and opened more gifts and was just able to be with one another. It is never boring at Mom and Dad's with all of the nieces and nephews. To see them just made my day. They were all so excited because it was Christmas and had fun new things to play with or wear. Justin even got a Ipod-lucky boy. Aparently Santa thought he was really good this year. He's even doing really awesome in school right now and middle school is tough. I can't believe my oldest Nephew is 12! Wow, I am getting old. I was his age when he was born, crazy!

Let's see. All in all it was a really nice Christmas and we are looking forward to the new year. We are hoping to have some changes in our life this year. We have some goals in mind we really want to get accomplished.

My/our goals for the New Year!:
1. Lose weight
2. Quit drinking pop. Period. I relapsed.
3. Get a 2 bedroom apartment with a yard for Tinkerbell.
4. Become more financially sound.

Our biggest and most personal goal this year together is:



I haven't posted about my new job because I didn't want to jinx it. But I do have a job-finally. I am working at TJ Maxx and I absolutely love it. It is so much fun and I love the people I work with. I am working part time right now but hope that they will eventually have me work more hours. I pretty much have done everything there. I cashier, put merchandise out, and work in the fitting rooms. I feel like I am learning quickly and the job is not too stressful for me.

Chase is still at CarQuest -3 years this past October. He still enjoys it. I have been encouraging him to maybe go to mechanic school and get ASE certified so that he can possibly do that as a career. But he still has his dream of becoming a Herpetologist. I guess we will see where the road leads us.

I've been wanting to go back to school and finish my degree lately. I hope that I can work that out soon so I can just get done and have my degree.

Have a Happy New Year. We are so thankful for our family and friends in our lives.

This is funny!

Shooting at Ft. Hood in Texas

I've just been watching Fox News and I heard that there was a shooting and 12 are dead and 31 wounded at Fort Hood. The media don't know who the shooter is (the military does but haven't released the name officially) but that he was a soldier about to be deployed and that he was upset about going. There are two other possible shooters in custody. I feel so bad for the families of those that have died or were wounded. I just wanted to post and say how I am praying for those families and I hope that you will do the same. In this world of violence and madness, it just saddens me every time something like this happens. God Bless America!

My (Not so happy) 23rd Birthday

Well Yesterday was my 23rd birthday and it started out okay until I got the mail and there was something from Chase's Employer in a big fat envelope. Chase and I opened it on his lunch break and guess what good news was in there? Oh yeah Chase has been audited and his avg. amount of hours worked is like 32.17 hours over the past 18 weeks (so not his fault, his bosses) and he has to have a avg. of 35 hours to be considered full-time. Ok so they continue to go on that our INSURANCE has been DROPPED because of this as of 9/1/09 and mind you it is 9/15/09 when we got this. Knowing me I freaked out and started bawling after Chase left (got hold it in from him because I am so strong...not) and called my mom. I don't know what we're going to do. I did eventually calm down after a while. Anyone have some legal advice? I wonder if this is legal? They didn't even warn us that he would be dropped. Piece of crap employer. Did I mention, hello...looking for new and better job!



So that night Chase's family had a party for me and it was nice. We celebrated with my side of the family last Sunday. I had funfetti cake which was yummy with a cream cheese frosting which Chase's mom made. Alas there was no pictures taken but that's okay because I always forget the camera. I got money and some gift cards to Borders and American Eagle and a cute tote bag and today I went out and got me the purse I've been wanting for like a year (totally worth the money) and at Borders I got The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (can't wait to read) and a CD- Taylor Swift (am I too old to love her and her music?).


Isn't news like your insurance being dropped great on your birthday? I thought so. Needless to say Chase goes down to his monthly doc appt. tomorrow ($140) and we have no insurance, and we have to buy his perscriptions at retail price. Chase has been looking into which meds are the cheapest retail, but its still going to be over $200 or so. Did I say that I hate my life? Well sorry I had to rant and rave, but how else can I vent?

Open Season

Well we got up at 5:30 yesterday morning and got ready to head out ot Newton for opening day of Dove Season. Why do you have to always get up so darn early to hunt? Well I was pretty excited Monday night and couldn't sleep because it was my first time officially hunting with my own gun and not just hiking along. Well I didn't actually have my own gun, I used Chase's 12 gauge and he used his grandpas.
We went with Trevor (Chase's brother) and his friend Jordan Walquist. Leilani (my sis in law) also came but didn't actually hunt. We ended up having a lot of fun. And the biggest suprise of all was that I actually shot one! It was so exciting and fun to be out there walking around and looking to shoot dove. Chase got five and Trevor got seven.
Today I am so sore and I also fell in a hole and twisted my ankle bad and it is so swollen and I can hardly walk on it. I am such a klutz. My mom thinks I should get it x-rayed but I don't know if it is broke or just sprained. Now I haven't been able to go out today or tonight to hunt. Chase went back out again tonight and got five more. So it seems like we'll be eating dove sometime soon. I also cleaned the dove that I shot. The weird thing is that if you would have said I'd be hunting five years ago, I would have laughed. I am also planning on going spike elk hunting this October with Chase. I hope one of us gets one because we need the meat for this winter coming up.
I didn't get any pictures of us because I forgot the camera and I doubt any of my boys would have posed for a pic anyways.

Jackson Hole or Bust!!!

So we just got back from our family trip to Jackson Hole and we had so much fun! We went on a hike up to Taggart Lake and it was gorgeous! We got to play in the water of the river in the Gros Ventre Campground. We went shopping to Jackson and ate at Bubba's (mmm....ribs....craving them now!). The last day Chase and I decided to go and have a picnic up at String Lake. It was pretty busy up there but was peaceful at the same time. I took my book and read and Chase went on a walk. He kept wanting to find a bear for some reason. I think he's crazy but alas, no bear this trip.

Little Red and my Man

Well today was Chase's day off and he had a project to do. My little red needed new rotors, brake pads and axles. So Chase took on this project all on his own, with my own help here and there. So we got up and went to CarQuest to get the parts of course. We got a steal of a deal (obviously we would) because Chase gets the best discount for working there. Only now, he had to do the labor. The whole time while he was cussing and sweating over the job, he said it would have been worth the $300 labor to have a professional do it. He sure kept me laughing all day. It was so interesting watching him fix up our little red. I have memories of watching my dad out in the garage fixing our cars and him fixing up his 1967 Mustang from basically nothing to beautiful. Anyways, I had my doubts about Chase's capabilities but I shouldn't have. I was nervous the whole time that little red wouldn't get put back together again. It took us (well me watching and reading) and Chase sweating and working about 7 hours today, but we did it! I am so proud of Chase and am grateful that he can work on Cars and so we don't have to pay to have someone else fix it up. I have posted a pic of a suped up little red (ours doesn't look quite so hot) but thought you might enjoy the thoughts of driving this bad boy! I know you are so jealous.

It's Twins!!!!

Well tonight, Chase and I went to visit my brother and sister-in-law's new baby girls up at the hospital! They both weighed 7 lbs 1 ounce. Isn't that strange? They were born early this morning. I am so happy for them and Ellie was so cute walking around to both of them and saying "baby A" or "baby B". She is a happy big sister right now. I did hear her say hello to Sophie though. So she's learning to tell them apart I think. I took my camera up there meaning to take pictures, but got caught up into holding them (I held Lily) and Chase held Sophie that I just forgot. So sorry no pictures posted. I'm sure though that Dan and Holly will post plenty of pictures on their blog. Isn't birth such a miracle? I was just in awe of these two little precious bundles. So that is the latest family news and news in our life for now. Happy Birthday Sophie and Lily! Here's a pic of the Olsen Twins since I didn't take any pics.

Some Exciting Fun Swap

Hi all! I am so excited to tell you all about a swap I am hosting on www.swap-bot.com . This is such a fun website you can enter and participate in different swaps. I just participated in an apron swap and got such a cute apron from my partner. The swap that I am hosting is a fabric swap. What you do is get 1 Yard of fabric based upon what your partner would like and send it to them in the mail. Please check out my website and join if you like, it will be so much fun!


I swap with Swap-bot!

http://www.swap-bot.com/swap/show/34582

This was a cute post from Strandz that I thought would be nice to share with all those that may read my blog. I totally agree with the words of President Ukdorf.

Happy Anniversary Chase!!!!

Today is Chase and I's 2 year anniversary. Two years ago I married my best friend. Two years ago I got to be a princess for the day, it was such a perfect day. Two years ago, I got to become a Volkman and I am loving every minute of it. Happy Anniversary Honey, I love you so much!