My baby sis is a MISSIONARY!

Some people should always be little. It just seems that way. Typically, these little people are younger than you so you always picture them that way. I think this is a common occurence with siblings. And now my littlest sister is 21 and serving a mission! Now how did that happen?

Emily (aka Soeur Sudar) entered the MTC on Wednesday, April 22, 2009. She will soon be moving onto the Geneva, Switzerland mission French speaking. I can't even tell you how thrilled she is to serve French speaking. Like sister, like sister, we both love French! She's already fluent so picking up the language shouldn't be too hard for her.

I was a pretty bad sister when my older brother Jon went on a mission. I think I wrote him twice. I was very busy being a teenager. But we're friends now though, so that's good. And I promise to be a better sister to the Sister.

Currently Emily is in Maryland waiting for her Visa before she heads to Europe. I have to share one experience she's had because I think it's funny. You have to know that my sis Emily is super shy and talks so quietly--she's just a little tiny thing (5'2 maybe?) and is not the outgoing type. This is from her email:

The other night it was hot so we had the windows down as we were driving home. The people in the car next to us also had their windows down. We were sitting at a red light and Sister Folk dared me to give them a Book of Mormon, so I did. It was a huge black man and his girlfriend or wife and I just leaned out the window and offered it to them. He was unsure at first, but then he took it and we told him that we are missionaries and that it's another testament of Jesus Christ. It was awesome!

Maybe it won't strike anyone else as funny, but my sis is just so little and shy I just laugh when I think of her leaning out the window to share the gospel. But good for her!

We went to Jump On It right before Emily was set apart as a missionary. We had a blast! I never knew jumping on tramps could be that fun. Some of the pictures are blurry, but that's because we were always in motion!

Benson (the boyfriend) and Emily (the soon-to-be missionary)

Tyler and DominiqueJon (my brother) and Chrissy (his wife)

Alicia (my sister) and Colby (her boyfriend)

Sister Sudar

Best Sisters

Goodbye at the MTC: Tim (my step-dad) and Nancy (my mom)

Gary (my dad) and Wendy (my step-mom)

If you know Emily and want to keep in touch, you can email her: sisteremilysudar@myldsmail.net Anyone can write her but she can only write to family. If you want to send her real mail, I can give you her address but it will soon be changing. Just let me know! :)

How the Economy Affected the Quongs

So the economy stinks. It's been spiraling downhill for awhile and things are pretty bad. But really the only effect on us was that I lost some money in my 401K. Nothing huge. Obviously there are a lot of people out there suffering much more than we are. I didn't really feel like we'd really been affected. Until this.
Tyler's restaurant, La Vigna, closed. Without warning. Not even kidding, we found out on facebook. After the shift one Saturday night they said, "That's it. We're closing our doors". And that was it! No one had preparation or warning or time to look for another job. Not even the general manager knew it was coming. The owner just shut up shop.
We knew that La Vigna was having a hard time making it and they were struggling. They'd made as many cut backs as they could, but we didn't think they'd close for at least another few months. They'd been barely hanging on for awhile. BUT STILL. La Vigna just closed. Done, gone, no warning, and they didn't even call their employees to tell them. I'm just glad we found out before Tyler drove over to work his Monday night shift.
Thank goodness I have a good job and we'll be alright. But what craziness. Tyler is currently job hunting so if you hear of any awesome design jobs, let us know!

One solution to the problem....

Well, you could just cut it all off.

Kyle & Janet

Our friends Kyle & Janet came to visit us in Utah and try out snowboarding. They were here for a weekend trip and stayed with us. We had a fun time--introduced them to BYU's campus, went out to eat to the best Mexican place we know (Maria Bonita's!), went boarding at The Canyons, then went hot tubbing to recover from snowboarding, got a flat tire (not the highlight of the trip), showed them the scenerey of Utah's mountains, and had a good time just hanging out.

Kyle & Janet on the lift up from the parking lot.

Tyler & Dominique on the lift.

Tyler just chilling.

Dominique taking a picture of herself so she can be included. (I'm always the photographer so there's pictures of everyone else but not me....so I had to take one! ;)

That's Kyle with the blue board! I was right under him!
That's him in real life.

Janet making her way down the mountain.

Tyler twirling his gloves for me.

Kyle showing off his moves.

Tyler on his board. There's a lot of pics of us sitting down because that's when I'd pull out my camera.

What an awesome day on the mountain!

So I'm a dork....

I read on a friend of a friend's blog about changing the date of when your post is posted....and I thought it was GREAT! Because usually I have one chunk of time--not two or three--to update my blog. So I thought I would write TWO posts and then they would post at different times and it would look like I took care of my blog.
Well, it backfired.
Because I started writing another post yesterday and finished today just shortly before my other post was scheduled to post. And I forgot, and then the old/new posted, and then I tried to change it which is why the old/new post now says Friday. So I still have two posts on the same day, even though the dates say they are different.
Sheesh.

A Hair Lament

Some women would say I have the best of both worlds. I have naturally curly hair which straightens easily so I can go both ways. And although most days I like my hair and like that I can be curly or straight, some days I just want to yank it all out! Or at least subconsciously pass on a message for everyone to not look at it. Thus my hair lament.

Complaint #1: When I do my hair curly, sometimes it's FRIZZY. I don't get it. I've tried nearly every product available down the shampoo aisle at Wal-Mart--both gel AND mousse--and still have not been completely satisfied. And I'm too cheap to buy expensive stuff because I go through it too quickly. SOMEdays my hair turns out fine; other days I do the exact same thing with the exact same stuff and I get frizz-mania. Grumble, grumble, it makes me crazy. Here is a picture of my frizz ball from the other day. And hence the hat to try and hide some of it. (But notice I still smiled for the picture ;)

Complaint #2: Sometimes my curls are curly. Sometimes they are not. "That makes no sense!" you say. "I know," I sadly respond. Please, when my hair is curly, never look at the ones on the bottom right behind my neck. 99% of the time they are straight with maybe a little wiggle in them. I can't even classify it as a "curl". See picture below as an example. I do have the wind affect going on, but yeah. That hair is hardly curly!

Complaint #3: My hair wants to part down the very center of my head from forehead to crown. It is the bain of my morning routine. I blowdry, round brush, tease, rat, hairspray to no avail. Oh sure, my part will stay hidden....for a few hours at most. And then it reappears to my utmost dismay. It's aggravating. All I am asking for is no part on the back 1/3 of my head--that's it! Some people refer to it as "Utah hair", my sister Alicia calls it an "eggbert"(haha, she's funny), and I don't really have a name for it, but I love this picture of my hair because it did what I wanted it to do! I like a little volume back there!

And this is a good example of a bad example. It's good because you're looking down on me, so you can see where I parted my hair (the crooked part up front) and where my hair decided to part (the straight part on the crown). Stinkin hair....So I invite you to share the woes of your hair care routine, or assure me that you still like me despite my hair. ;) Or if you have curly hair and can recommend something good, let me know! I want less frizz and more crisp curls! Any beauty recommendations are invited!

One Cool Project

This all occurred over the span of several months, and was actually completed in December, but I didn't have pictures for awhile and now I do so I wanted to share Tyler's cool project!

There is a Hawaiian restaurant in Provo (across the street from DI) called Sweet's. Tyler worked with them and was asked if he knew anyone who could paint a mural. Tyler is very artistic and decided to give it a shot. He started one very big project! It took a lot of time, and a lot of paint, but he is now a muralist! I helped too, but just painting the big open spots that were all the same color. ;) To get the full effect, go to Sweet's and check it out!

In the process.....Complete!