Goodbye to an old friend

Dave and I were sad to say goodbye to an old friend. It's funny how attached you become to your cars, you go through so much with them. This little 1987 Honda Accord Dave bought from his parents who had bought it from his grandparents. When I first met Dave two years ago he was driving this little car and the funniest thing about it was that it squeaked when you drove it. Dave eventually got it fixed but I have loved it ever since. It only has 150,000 miles on it and is in great condition but unfortunately a few months ago it decided it didn't want to run anymore. We were hoping it would make it until January when we buy my parents car because they are leaving on their mission, but it didn't make it. We tried to fix it with putting in a used transmission and it still didn't want to run. So this last week we decided to put it on KLS.com and yesterday sold it.

We were both happy but I was kind of sad. This is the only car I have known Dave in and it was actually one of the reasons I liked him when we first started dating. I knew that a guy with a car this old didn't want fancy things and didn't spend all of his money on a new car. I knew he was down to earth and enjoyed fixing cars that were a little used, in order to save money and not buying a brand new car. After we got married we sold my parents Buick they graciously gave me and then I started driving this little Honda. I grew attached to it and actually really liked it. It got Dave through a few years of school and me through the last year of graduate school. We didn't have a car payment and it was very reliable. So goodbye old friend, we hope you still run with your new owner and you make someone else happy. :)

Christmas traditions

As Dave and I have started our family with the two of us I've found it hard to start traditions without kids, like my sisters have. However, I realized that my family and Dave's family have fun traditions that we want to keep doing each year. One of the traditions that his family does is spend the entire day after Thanksgiving making Christmas candy. I took the day off because this day is so much fun to spend with family and learn how to make really good treats. This year we made the following: fudge, caramel, chocolate turtles, chocolate covered pretzels, and cinnamon bears. Here are a few pictures
Another tradition that I think we will start is going to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert and looking at the lights. Last night we went with my parents to stand in the standby line. We saw some friends from our ward who luckily gave us tickets and then we miraculously got two more for my parents. It was so enjoyable and truly allowed me to feel of the Christmas spirit, without the spending, shopping, and thinking about money. If anybody has any ideas on traditions to start with just two people let me know, Dave and I would love the ideas. Merry Christmas!!

A man and his train

Here is our fun Christmas tree with Dave's choo choo train. This year we decided to put up Dave's fake 7 ft christmas tree because last year we had a Charlie Brown christmas tree. We had fun decorating it and Dave had fun putting the train underneath. I'm going to attempt to upload a movie of the train but it might not work because I've never put a video on our blog, so here it goes.
Here are the two videos of our train. I had to post the first one because Dave turned the camera sideways and didn't realize it recorded like that, I thought it was hilarious. The second one has funny comments from Dave. He's a little kid but it keeps our lives interesting and our marriage fun!! Enjoy!!

Happy late Thanksgiving

I am posting this really late, I know. I thought with passing my test I would have all this free time to do what I want but strangely I find my time is taken up with things that I have put off for so long that need to be taken care of. So this year we were at Dave's for Thanksgiving but my family held their own thanksgiving two weeks earlier so here are some pictures from that. See below for the actual Thanksgiving day

The whole family

The brother-in-laws

Enoch and his feast

Dave made all the pies this year for both families. Here is his pumpkin, banana cream, and peanut butter chocolate pies. They were delicious!!

Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving Day. We went shooting with Dave's uncle and cousins out by Eagle Mountain, it was so much fun!!

Dave now wants to buy guns, I wonder why?
Me trying to shoot, I didn't do too bad but I only could shoot the 22 because it didn't kick back on me, I know I'm a wussWe put all of these targets, I don't know if you can see the little orange things, it was a lot of fun to shoot

I passed the Clinical Licensing Exam for Social Work

Dear licensing exam,
I finally conquered you, after you took many months from my life. Ever since May and I wore that stupid cap and gown I have had anxiety attacks over you and you have never left my mind. I tried to conquer you once and I failed. It was very traumatizing for me and I thought my life was over (literally I did). So I didn't think about you for a few weeks and went to find a job without you. I luckily found one but then the intern license I am currently using is expiring in january and I needed to face you once again. So I was lucky enough to have an employer that allowed me to take time off every day to study for you and for the last 5 weeks every night has been dedicated to you. My poor husband has not a home cooked meal since I started studying again, everything in my life has been put on hold or sitting on a pile on my desk and I wasn't able to enjoy any part of life because you were always there in the back of my mind. Well today I finally conquered you, after 170 questions and 4 grueling hours I finally saw the "PASS" on the screen and I screamed and jumped up and down in the testing center!! I will never have to face you again and I can start living life like I want to.

Sincerely,

Michelle, the social worker

P.S. My husband is the most supportive man. He stood by me during my last year of graduate school and all the time I was studying for this test. I wouldn't have made it without him. When I got home from my test I found these flowers. He said they were either congratulations or condolences :) Thanks sweetie, and thanks for the cute blog post!! I love you!!

So Proud

I don't want to steal Michelle's thunder, but I wanted to post before she got home and puts up a huge post about today. I just want to let her know that I am proud of all the hard work and dedication that she has put in over the last month or so in preparing to take her LCSW licensing exam. I am very proud and can't wait for her to put up a post telling you how she is feeling. I love you Michelle!

A week of Halloween

Halloween this year turned out to be really fun. Halloween is not my favorite holiday, I hate thinking of a costume. But with the Kelly family halloween party and seeing our cute nieces and nephews in their costumes it turned out to be a lot of fun. Every year the Kelly family gets together to carve at least two pumpkins each. And this is not just carving a silly face this is serious carving. So here we are with our first round of carving.



Dave was so excited to pick out pumpkins this year and of course he had to get the biggest one there. This pumpkin was huge and by the time he had gutted it everyone else was done carving and he was still going. :( I didn't want to say "I told you so" to his face so I'll say it now :)


These two pumpkins were dave and I's. He did the wolves which in my opinion was the best one there and then I did a bat.

Here is the final product!! James, Dave's brother carved Jim and Dwight from "The Office". It's always a lot of fun to see the final product of all the pumpkins.

Then on Halloween night we went down to my sisters house in Lehi to hang out. She made homemade donuts with chocolate frosting and sprinkles. They were amazing!! Here is my nephew Gavin as a BYU football fan, then the other niece and nephews I didn't get pictures of were: enoch - a cowboy with a nerf water gun, Carson - Buzz lightyear, Brynnley - Tinkerbell. They had taken their costumes off by the time we got there.

And here is the cutest little flower you will ever see. My niece Kate wore her costume all night because it was her pajamas. My sister Tresa who is so creative when it comes to making homemade costumes sewed a stem on her sleeper and then a flower on her hat. Isn't she adorable!! All in all halloween was a lot of fun. We ended the night with me typing as Dave dictated to me a paper that was due by midnight. He e-mailed it in at 11:45 p.m. :)

The Randall Family

Here are a few of the pictures my family had taken before my parents leave for their mission. I have the cutest family ever!!

Thoughts on turning one year older

So I had a fabulous birthday, thanks to my wonderful, cute, sweet husband. He always spoils me on my birthday, even when we were not dating he gave me a present. He surprised me by sending flowers, balloons and candy to my work. Then he bought me new work clothes and shoes, which I desperately needed. Then he took me to a Japanese restaurant, Kyoto, in sugarhouse. It was amazing!! He knows I love japanese food and our second date was when he took me out for japanese food downtown. As I was amazed at how lucky I am to be married to him I was talking to him about turning 28. You look back at your life and wonder, wow nothing has gone how I planned it. No matter how hard you try to plan your life you always get curve balls thrown in your path. Yesterday as I realized I am so close to the dreaded 30, I realized how grateful I am for the curve balls that have gotten me to 28. Here are a list of my wonderful curve balls in my life: serving a mission in Japan, moving to Salt Lake City (which I swore I would never do), graduating with my bachelor's degree and graduating with my masters degree. All of these have led me to one place and that is with my amazing husband Dave. Thanks babe for a wonderful birthday!!

Fun date night/Herbs Part 2

So dave has been promising me he would take me to "Color Me Mine", it's this fun painting/pottery place that you can pick things to paint and then they fire them for you. It's a fun, creative, cheap date. Dave and I had a hard time picking out what to paint but he saw this little herb pot set and we were done deciding. We have become herb geeks. The other day Dave said "We need to harvest our herbs", which meant cut off the leaves and dry them because we don't use them enough in our cooking. I laughed literally for an hour because he said "harvest our herbs". So at Color Me Mine, which I recommend to anyone looking for a fun date or anything fun to do, we painted our little herb pot set and then planted a few more herbs. We added chives, marjoram, and Caraway. It's a fun hobby we have picked up and I would recommend it to anybody who will get bored this winter. It's easy to take care of them and then you get yummy food from your labors. Thanks cutie for the fun date!!

A fall weekend

My favorite part of conference weekend is doing nothing and cuddling up in a blanket with your hubbie while it rains outside. That's how our weekend went this weekend. We went down to my parents house in Fairview and had a relaxing weekend. My mom had soup for us when we got there, it was comfort food. There is nothing like comfort food. Conference was awesome as usual. All the inspiring words spoken. Especially President Monson's talk about "Living Now". I don't do that nearly enough.

Road trip, new car, and the most amazing 1st year anniversary!!

So the last couple of weeks have been really busy for Dave and I. You would think being out of graduate school and working I would have more time, but mysteriously I find myself with no time to do the things I thought I would be able to without school in my life. So that's why I haven't blogged lately. Dave and I have been searching to find a newer car for us to drive. Dave and I have been driving beater cars ever since we could drive. We have never had a car newer than 1993 because we have been in school and didn't want to have a car payment. So this was a big decision for Dave and I. We fell in love with wanting to own a Subie, not because we are tree huggers but because we wanted an AWD car for the snow and to go camping. We want a car to haul all our camping gear in and our bikes. So we decided on the Forester. We looked on-line and around Salt Lake and found out we could save a lot of money by buying out-of-state. Most people are scared to do that because you don't get to see the car but we had the best car buyer in the state to help us, my dad. He is amazing at buying cars and talking people down on the price they offer you. Plus he knows cars and knows what to ask and look for. After a bad experience with a California Subaru car dealer (which I won't tell the long messy story now, ask me if you want to know the details) we found this beautiful forester in Tucson Arizona. It was an amazing deal and my dad talked him down even more than the internet price, I don't know how he does it. It happened that we were leaving for our anniversary trip when my dad sealed the deal with this guy so we decided to re-route our Lava Hot Springs anniversary trip to Arizona. Here is our beautiful new car!!

Dave is so excited about this new car, can't you see him beaming. Or maybe that's because we have been married one glorious year!!

The best part about this Subie is the huge sunroof, you can't see it from here but it has a sunroof that goes half way back into the second seat

So our anniversary trip turned into a road trip to pick up our fun new car. A lot of people asked if we had fun because we were driving most of the trip but those people had no idea how much fun it is to go on a road trip with Dave. We had the best time traveling in our new car, taking the scenic routes and seeing beautiful Utah. We caught a last minute flight to Tucson after visiting LAX for two hours (neither Dave or I have been to LA but now we can say we have). The couple we bought the car from was so nice and met us in Tucson. They had the car detailed and it was just perfect. We stopped at Glen Canyon dam and even took the tour. (dave wanted to go on the tour so bad so we got tickets on the waiting list :) He was like a little kid in a candy store on the tour)

So we stopped in Flagstaff for the night and then drove up through southern Utah. I had forgotten the leaves had changed in the mountains because in the city they haven't changed yet. It was breathtaking to see all the leaves and the colors. We opened our sunroof and just enjoyed the ride.



We stopped at Cedar Breaks and snapped a few pictures. One of the best things about being married to Dave is that we both love to travel and see places. Not many people would want to travel with their wife in a car through southern utah looking at the sites for their anniversary. That is why I have the best husband in the world!! We loved the sightseeing.


We found a romantic Spa and Lodge in Brain Head (which I had no idea existed in southern utah). If anybody wants a romantic getaway stay at this place during the summer. The summer rates are amazing for the place you get to stay in. It's called Cedar Breaks Spa and Lodge. So we had the perfect anniversary, road trip, and got a new car all in one week!!