Had a Good Cry Today

Have you ever been accused of being stuck up? I have, infact, I don't know how many times people have told me that they thought I was stuck up until they took the time to get to know me. I'm here to say that I'm not stuck up, and I don't mean to portray myself as such. I'm just shy, REALLY shy. I'm getting better as I get older, but I still get sick to my stomach if asked to talk in front of a group of people. I dread having to teach a lesson or heaven forbid talk in sacrament. I do okay in front of children, but lack the self-confidence to talk in front of my peers. I can hold a conversation with those around me, but can't bear to start up a conversation with someone I barely know for fear of rejection. Trust me, this is a huge improvement from where I use to be. When I was younger I was so shy I got nervous talking to any adult, including my own grandparents. I had a nervous habit of rapidly blinking my eyes, which was frequently pointed out to me by my peers (which in turn made me more nervous and self conscious). Consequently, I've always had a hard time making friends. No one wants to be friends with someone who's stuck up (or has a weird habit of rapidly blinking their eyes; thankfully I've outgrown that).

So please, if all I do is shyly smile and barely whisper hello as we're passing in the halls of church or I'm just a quiet listener to the conversation at enrichment don't think it's because I'm stuck up. Please know it took all the courage I could muster just to look at you as we passed in the hallway, or to even show up to enrichment. Please make the effort to get to know me, even though it seems as though I lack interest, and know that it's taking everything I have inside to keep the conversation going. Please know that I'm trying to break out of this shell, but it's a daily struggle, and probably one of life's biggest challenges. Please be patient and understanding, please make the effort to get to know me and be my friend, please. . .

. . . in the mean time, I had a good cry today.

The Boy from the House Next Door

Here's another story I found. . .

The Boy from the House Next Door

By Amy

Once upon a time there was a young girl named Molly. Molly was playing on her swing set when her mom called her in to get ready for a birthday party. Her mom said it was a party for the boy next door. Molly had heard stories about the boy next door from her brother. He knew everything. The boy next door was a short chubby kid with bright orange hair. He looked a lot like a gorilla. His name was Gordy. Molly tried to imagine a birthday party for a gorilla. What would they do? Swing through the trees and eat bananas? She HATED bananas! Molly didn't want to go to a party for some gorilla, all he would do was monkey around, snort and eat bananas. Molly walked up to the front door of the strange house and hid behind her mother's skirt when she rang the doorbell. As Molly peeked around to see who answered the door, all she saw was bright orange hair. Molly saw that hair and thought: big, mean, hairy: GORILLA! She didn't want to be taken into the jungle with a hairy gorilla. Suddenly a hand grabbed hers. "AAHH," Molly screamed as she was pulled into the poorly lit house. She couldn't really tell where she was as she got dragged to the backyard. When Molly walked out the back door, she didn't see any gorilla, jungle or bananas. She saw several kids running around playing fun games. She looked over to see who had grabbed her hand. "Hi, my name is Gordy, " the boy, her size, with bright orange hair, introduced himself. The End.

Jonny's Red Ball

I've been decluttering our house lately, and I ran across some children's stories I wrote in my high school creative writing class. While I don't want to keep odd papers laying around, I'd like to remember the stories so here's the first one.

Jonny's Red Ball

by Amy

Jonny lost his new bright red ball. He saw Sally playing with some toys and went to see what they were. Sally was playing with her old blue blocks. she had not seen Jonny's red ball. Together they went to look for Jonny's red ball. They saw Jimmy playing and went to see what he was playing with. Jimmy was playing with his yellow triangles. He had not seen Jonny's red ball. The three of them went to look for Jonny's red ball. They went over to Molly who was playing in the corner. Molly was playing with green boxes. She had not seen Jonny's red ball. Jonny's mom then came into the playroom. She was carrying something. It was Jonny's red ball. He was glad it was found, but he had also found other toys. He had found blue blocks, yellow triangles, and green boxes. He had also found friends to share his red ball with.

The Ultimate Backyard

Welcome to the Zugner household, and our first (and only) tour of our ULTIMATE BACKYARD. First, I'd like to introduce you to our host, none other than little Miss Jordyn!

Don't worry, we didn't catch her off guard, the lack of clothing is a normal thing around here. We've actually caught her on a good day, she's got a diaper on (a very unusual thing these days). To start off, we want to refresh your memory, of previous previews of our ULTIMATE BACKYARD. Out the back door we have this wonderful deck built by none other than Mr. Erik himself (with a LOT of help from his wonderful wife), look to the right and you see the garden (which is under attack by slimy slugs: anyone know how to get rid of them? They're destroying our squash plants).

Now for the part that you've all been waiting for. . . to the left, you see our. . . CLOTHES LINE!!

Oh wait, not what you wanted to see? Okay, to our left you see this nice red sandbox,

a bright blue swimming pool,

and our newest edition. . . Jordyn's own personal park.

Yes, after weighing the pros and cons, we decided on the play set, and Jordyn LOVES it. Erik didn't even get it completely put together before she was playing on it.

Easter Money

I know I've procrastinated a bit on posting about our Easter weekend, but I have a few good excuses, I really do. Our celebrations started Thursday and went through to Sunday, and during that time my laptop computer (the one with my picture editing programs and such on it) started to fall apart (literally, the keys were coming off the keyboard) and I've had no motivation to put my pictures on the "old" computer, but I've come to realize that I can't wait 6-8 weeks (yes, that is the estimated time to fix a broken keyboard) to update my blog, so here it is. Since Erik had to work the weekend, we decided to do our Easter celebrations on Thursday, we had colored eggs,

made sugar cookies, had an Easter egg hunt,

and had our Easter dinner, with the missionaries as company. Friday Erik had a BBQ with some of his classmates from the academy. He smoked a brisket on his new smoker, and got to show off his new deck. We all had a great time. Saturday, Erik's parents had us over for an Easter lunch, and then Sunday after enjoying a wonderful morning at church, Jordyn and I went to another Easter dinner with Erik's mom (where Jordyn let her terrible two's come out in full force).

This year, the Easter Bunny did something a bit out of character at our house. Instead of his usual basket full of candy and candy filled eggs, he left Jordyn money in her eggs (don't worry she did get a small handful of candy and a chocolate bunny). I believe he did this because he'd heard about Jordyn's obsession with money lately (more on that later). So he filled her plastic eggs with some green stuff, and she made out with $10.00. To add to her enjoyment, Mimi (Erik's mom) gave her some more money for Easter. We hope you all had as enjoyable of an Easter as we did!

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary. . .

how does your garden grow?

I'm not sure how Mary's garden is doing, but ours is doing quite well. We are impatiently waiting to enjoy the fruits of our labors. We have a few bell peppers that are all but big enough to pick, some summer squash and zucchini that are growing nicely, a few cherry tomatoes on the vine, and our first strawberry flower is in bloom. Unfortunately, we've had a few losses in our garden. Apparently we don't have the right type of soil for cucumbers; we've lost all three of our plants, and presently it looks like something is killing our yellow tomato plants, they're all but dead (after searching online, it sounds like we may have some sort of fungus in the soil that is attacking the roots). Now that the plants are bigger, we realize we might have planted them a bit close together, for our first garden, I'd say it's doing pretty well.

What We've Been Up To. . .

I know, I've been bad at posting lately, and honestly, I have no excuse. I've just been lazy. For those of you who are dieing to know what we've been up to lately, here's a recap. . .

We've been enjoying the warm weather in our new swimming pool,

Cheering on our favorite local team,

Watching General Conference in our jammies on our deck (while daddy "seasons" his new smoker),

and enjoying every moment that Daddy is home (we're going through a daddy only phase right now).

So what have you been up to lately?