Father/Daughter Campout

The three of us
This is me, Pochahontas style
We stopped at this sand bar- the sand was AMAZING! so soft!
Everyone cliff jumping and me taking pics because I forgot my swimsuit! If this was a mother/daughter campout-I may have just jumped in, but I was not about to start a wet t-shirt contest with all the men from the ward there!
This is the group of girls, I totally had a blast hanging out with them. I was by far the oldest daughter there. At the end, one girl was like, "your the oldest daughter here, youre like 20 years old, whoa!" and I said, "yes. thats right" hehe

In August, I went camping (shocker!) with my lil sister and dad. It was a great opportunity to do something like that with all three of us. Seeing as I am 10 years older than my sister, we didnt have many chances where we were both the right age to do things together like this. We camped on the St. Croix river and canoed the next day. The river was beautiful, but the canoe was rock hard- my butt hurt so bad I couldnt sit comfortably for 4 days! At night, around the campfire, Courtney and I stategically placed Dad's remote control fart machine (which he brought home from work-just for this occasion) and let them rip in true Hanberg style. Of course we pranked the Bishopric first and then worked our way down to the innocent unsuspecting Achievement Day girls. Funny thing is, that the next day, after canoeing, we all rode a bus back with another group that was on the river. This old man in line in front of me totally ripped one, but I think everyone suspected I had used the machine and they looked at me! I take credit where credit is due, but that was definetly not me!

Fourth of July

Music in Plymouth- lots of vendors, The MN orchestra and fireworks!



ok, I know its late, but Im trying to catch up, somewhat. My Uncle Mark and his two kids were able to join us for the holiday. We had the most amazing food for about 4 days in a row, watched fireworks, and rented a boat on Lake Minnetonka! Fun, fun, fun!

Summer fun

There are two things that my family is obsessed with; hamburgers and chinese food. The search for the best hamburger and chinese food has extended into every state in which we have lived, all 10 of them. This picture is of Matt's Bar- voted one of the best hamburgers in MN. The burger is two patties seamed together with molten liquid cheese in the middle. Very good, very rich, very hot (the cheese that is).

The other picture is of my sister Courtney and I. We saw these cool coconut cups at Target and when they went on sale, we had to try them! This is us enjoying margaritas(virgin of course!) on the porch. Yes, my world revolves around food.

Brett's party

My Grandma planned a graduation party for Brett in June. Both sides of our families were there, it was fun! This is Brett's Grandma with Bryson (Brett's cousin's son)
My Aunt Annie gave Brett a male nurse action figure. It said "Doctors prescribe, nurses provide!"

Miscarriage

I dont really know how to begin this post. I tend to skip blogging about the hard things altogether because I never have the right words to show how I really feel. I dont want people to make assumptions on my feelings due to my inability to convey them.
I may regret posting this but it seems that one by one people are finding out and due to the nature of our lives people think themselves privledged to ask what they may. (more to come on that later)
On Saturday night I miscarried our baby at 8 weeks. We were due in February. I decided on a natural miscarriage (ironically I dont believe in natural births...but thats another story). I saw the placenta and umbilical cord which was very long and took me by surprise. I decided not to look in the sac to see my baby.
Yes we are heartbroken, yes this was a medical miracle and yes we found out we were pregnant the day before we paid our adoption fee. Thus everything with our adoption process is on hold.
This is all we want to share, hint hint, which brings me to my point. I hope this doesnt come out rash and please do not take this too personal if you fall into this category (which is most people). When you have been told information by us about our infertility, treatments, adoption or none of the above this does not give you the right to keep asking questions. Ever. For example, we shared with family and close friends our decision to try IVF. When it didnt work, we informed everyone about that. But for some reason, people couldnt stop asking questions like, why didnt it work? what will you do now? when will you use your frozen embryos? my co-workers friend did IVF 3 times and it worked...you get my point. We will tell you things when there are things to be told. End of story. And we do not want to hear your friends uncles daughters story about infertility or adoption. For this reason we have stopped sharing so much. Everyone was shocked to find out we used our frozen embryos without telling anyone, well frankly, we told you about IVF and you blew it so we decided to keep this one private. I might also add that none of you inform us when you are trying to get pregnant, but I wish you would so I could call you every month and ask if it worked and drive you crazy!
So let me say this one more time in regards to the adoption process, we will tell you when there is something for us to tell you! Now you all are laughing thinking that other people are doing this, but really, its probably you too, because everyone asks us if weve finished the adoption papers everytime they talk to us. Seriously.
Now, with that said, I know that you all do this because you care about us, and we are grateful for you. Really we are. We realize people dont always know what to say or do, and that is why I finally wrote this post. Now you all know what to say-nothing, unless we bring it up. Now I dont want everyone to stop talking to us due to fear of upsetting us. We would love to hear from you, and you are welcome to talk to us about things we have already shared with you, but please dont bug us about what we will do next. We know that this is in the Lords hands and we are thrilled with that. We know He will bring children to us somehow, someday. But as you can imagine, most people dont have to share the intimate details of thier family with everyone and yet we feel we are expected to.

something to think about before you vote

some of you may have seen this in an email going around. I enjoyed it and thought you might too.





PART 1:
Remember the election in 2006? Thought you might like to read the following.
A little over one year ago:


1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2-1/2 year high;


2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;


3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%. Since voting in a Democratically controlled Congress in 2006 we have seen:
1) Consumer confidence plummet;


2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to well over $3.50 a gallon;


3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);


4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);


5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars;


6) 3% of American homes are in foreclosure. America voted for 'change' in 2006, and we got it!





Remember, it's Congress that makes the law, not the President. He has to work with what's handed him.
Quote of the Day: "My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it." -- Barack Obama


PART 2:
Taxes. Whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics enlightening and amazing. http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.HTML
Taxes under Clinton 1999... Taxes under Bush


Single making 30K - tax $8,400... Single making 30K - tax $4,500


Single making 50K - tax $14,000 ...Single making 50K - tax $12,500


Single making 75K - tax $23,250 ...Single making 75K - tax $18,750


Married making 60K - tax $16,800... Married making 60K- tax $9,000


Married making 75K - tax $21,000... Married making 75K - tax $18,750


Married making 125K - tax $38,750 ...Married making 125K - tax $31,250

Both democratic candidates will return to the higher tax rates once elected.
It is amazing how many people who fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If Obama or Hillary are elected, they both say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of the people who fall into the categories above can't wait for it to happen. This is like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman; you Scam somebody out of some money and they don't even know what happened.


PART 3:
You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much? Read this:
Boy am I confused. I have been hammered with propaganda that it's the 'Iraq War' and the 'War on Terror' that is bankrupting us. I now find that to be RIDICULOUS. I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them. I have included the URLs for verification of all the following facts:
1. $11 billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments. Verify at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77
2. $2.2 billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. Verify at: http://www.cisorg/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
3. $2.5 billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. Verify at: http://www.cisorg/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
4. $12 billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English! Verify at: http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.HTML
5. $17 billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
6. $3 Million dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.htm
8. $90 billion dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers. Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
9. $200 billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by illegal aliens. Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US . Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html
11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border. Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht
12. The National Policy Institute, 'estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.' Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf
13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm
14. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes is Committed By Illegal Immigrants In The United States' Verify at: http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml
The total cost is a whopping $338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR!!
Do they think voters are stupid?
If this doesn't bother you then just delete the message. If, on the other hand, it does raise the hair on the back of your neck, I hope you forward it to every legal resident in the country including every representative in Washington , D.C.



Marque-Diane Vassar


Sacramento State University


COMS 103 Graduate Assistant

BYU Pictures

Our sister-in-law, Ellen, took some pictures that we wanted before we left Provo. She stayed in cold weather and waited forever just to get the right light. She got exactly what I wanted and was so patient. She is fabulous, fun and talented. She would be amazing if she ever did start a photography buisness.