The past five or six moths...

We have had a pretty awesome year so far, I wish I would have been better about writing about it.

Since I last wrote, we had two new nephews join us!  One on each side of the family.

Scott finished up his schooling in May, graduation was a wonderful day!  I am so proud of him.

He got the wave when they called his name!

Just a few days after graduation, Scott started an internship at an awesome ad agency.  He has loved it and has done really well!

Over Memorial Day weekend, Scott and I got to make the beautiful drive to the Oregon coast!  It was an impromptu trip (to go pick something up for his dad), and we were so excited to get to go!  It was over Scott's birthday weekend, what a fun way to spend a birthday! We LOVE road trips. 

 This quaint little restaurant in Hood River Oregon had the best fish tacos!

I have always wanted to see "that beach with the big rock"...this was a dream come true! 

In June, my siblings Luke, Ash and I played in a concert together, we had a great time. It is always a privilege to perform together! My dad even joined us for a song on the guitar! 

In June I got to go to California with my parents, sister, and little brother.  We went to Disneyland and had a blast! 

By the look of it, I was the MOST terrified person on the Tower of Terror...

Cars Land had just opened and we loved it!

After getting home from Disneyland, I started to get sad because I knew that being back home meant that my little brother would be leaving on his mission in a few weeks. 

He is very close to Scott and I- he was only about ten years old when I brought Scott home for the first time.  He's pretty much grown up hanging out with the two of us. We see him a lot, so I was pretty darn sad about the prospect of him leaving. 

It was very tough, but the day came and we all said goodbye to him.  I have written him more times than I'll admit so far, and every time I hear any sort of news from him it makes my day!  He is going to Montreal, where he'll speak French. 

 It's been a busy couple of months, and we don't plan to slow down any time soon!  I'm so happy to have Scott by my side during the happy times, sad times, and everything in between.  So blessed.

Our Grammy Trip!

We are such lucky ducks, we got to go to the Grammy Awards!  A lot of people have asked me why we got to go...Jenny Oaks Baker is an artist on the label I work for (Shadow Mountain Records).  Her album was nominated for a Grammy Award, and we got the amazing chance to go support her! 

It was my first time in L.A. and I really liked it. We walked just about everywhere we went, and I loved looking up at all the great architecture and over-the-top advertisements. 

On the big day, we arrived at the pre-telecast at noon. They give out 70 Grammy Awards in three hours.  On the live show, they only give out about 10 awards!

  

Our group had great seats at the pre-telecast, which was fun.  There aren't a lot of big stars at that one, but we did see Taylor Swift, Tony Bennett, Steve Martin, the Foo Fighters, and Weird Al Yankovic.  

Unfortunately Jenny didn't take home the trophy, but the next experience sure cheered her up...she got to walk the red carpet!

Our lucky streak continued when we found out I got to be Jenny's rep on the red carpet.  Scott took some stealth pics with his phone and captured some awesome shots!  Like the pic above...that's Jenny waiting behind Alicia Keys.

Jenny asked Scott to take her pic with Jane Seymour, I think they look alike! 

It's been fun to see Jenny's press pics showing up on websites like the Washington Post.  She looked amazing!

Can you spot Scott and I in the pic above?  It's from this clip of Billy Ray Cyrus getting interviewed. 

One of the biggest highlights for Scott came when he turned around to find himself standing right next to Sir Paul McCartney!  Somehow he quickly snapped this pic.  We promise it's him :)

All in all, it was an unbelievable weekend!  I know I have over-used this word... but we feel so LUCKY to have been able to go.

p.s. a few people asked me where I got my skirt- it's from Shabby Apple...it had six layers of tulle! (I think I lived a small part of my ballerina dream)

Blanding

We took a great little road trip over Labor Day weekend. 

We went to Blanding, UT.  Scott's sister lives there and we hadn't seen her new house yet.  

Kari and Mark are so great, we wish we could see them more.  They have four adorable girls and we soaked up every minute we had with them!

It's hard to get a picture with everyone smiling...check out those two cuties on the end!

Scott's mom, dad, and sister came down to Blanding too!  One day we had a picnic in the mountains, it was really nice.  Julie and the nieces rounded up a beautiful bouquet of wildflowers. 

 

We drove down with Scott's other sister, Lisa, and her family.  We loved getting to drive with them, we had a lot of fun together.  

Scott and I were so happy to have three whole days of being together 24/7...can't beat that.

On Saturday we spent the afternoon at the pool, it was a blast!  Our little water babies were so adorable. 

The three older girls put on an elaborate puppet show, check out this cast list:

• Cinderella: a dinosaur
• Wicked Stepmother: a peacock
• Ugly Stepsisters: two socks

The weekend went by too quickly, but we sure had a good time while it lasted. 

Lucky Ducks

Look what we've been up to!  For 15 beautiful days we were living the dream in Hawaii.

My parents planned the most amazing vacation, we loved every minute! Our first week was spent in Oahu.  

Playing in the most beautiful water!

Snorkeling at Shark's Cove

Thankfully there weren't sharks, but this is one
 of the many sea turtles we saw!

Scott and I both loved snorkeling

Our favorite sunset

A beautiful Japanese temple

The surfers! They all did awesome

My brother noticed this down the street from our place.
From the 4th pirate's movie

Kayaking in beautiful Kauai

The whole crew! Had such a wonderful time together

 

Paradise!

Time in the sun

A sunny vacation, oh man I was so ready for it! I'm pretty sure this was the first time I took more than a day off work all year.  We spent last week up at Bear Lake with my family and my aunt/uncle/cousins.  Fourteen of my favorite people, it was so much fun to be with them all every day!  We had two sail boats up there and had a blast on those.  You wouldn't think a ride on a sail boat could be very wild, but leave it to Scott...he's not afraid of high winds! 

One night a bunch of us went out for a night swim in the lake.  It was awesome!  We wore glow stick bracelets and swam to the nearest buoy and back in the dark, we were the only ones out there- it was eerie, cool & unforgettable! 

We also went golfing while we were there, and my sister in law and I found out that we are perfect golfing buddies!  There were several times that after our first drives, our golf balls literally landed a foot apart.  I was excited to get my first bogey ever (one over par) during the game.

It's back to the daily grind now, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  But it was nice to get at least one vacation in this summer. 

Up to I.F.

This weekend we went on a road trip to Idaho Falls to spend the weekend with Scott's family.  We had so much fun there, always do. 

We all went and watched our bro Darren play high school ball.  He had some great hits, but I didn't catch any of them in a pic. Here he is being catcher though. Wearing his (and all the brothers) favorite number...5.

Scott was going all out to get some family pics at Darren's game. I think it's time for a new camera at our house, Scott loved using his mom's!

Siblings Jeff, Joe, Lisa, me, and Scott all went to go mothers day shopping at the mall.  Let's just say there were some enticing sales, and we all ended up with something for ourselves before we got any mothers day shopping done...don't worry- we ended up getting some sweet deals for our moms too.

The other awesome part of the weekend was lunch with our good friends the Staples!  It was just our luck that they happened to be in Idaho Falls, so we met up for a chance to reconnect (and finally got to meet their adorable baby girl Keira). 

P and E

I was so happy to be able to go down south this last weekend for my cousin Paul's wedding! His twin brother Matt was married on Valentines day this year. Paul found his perfect match Emily this summer and he has been so excited to marry her. I didn't get to meet her until the wedding, but I love her already! What a sweetheart. Both of these brothers found amazing wives, it is so fun to have new people come into our families.

As everyone down south could tell you...I was pretty sad that Scott couldn't make it :( He had to work this weekend. I still miss him quite a bit when we're apart for a few days. We were so excited to see each other again Sunday evening! I was at my parents house having dinner when Scott called saying he was on his way up. My parents hurried and set up two table settings for us and lit some candles to give us a 'romantic dinner' for two! It was too cute.

I have another run of Nutcracker this week, and need to squeeze in some Christmas shopping somehow! Violin and shopping seem like a good combo to me though, it should be a fun week.

Picture-less post

Winter is our slow season at work, so we are closing the office on Fridays to save money. That means I have a three day weekend every week!!!! It has been going on for about three weeks now and I am loving it!

I thought it might be fun to attempt a fun craft project on these days off (I am amazed at the cute things you all make!) but I usually just end up cleaning or something. Our house and my car have been much neater this past month. It's a good feeling.

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We are looking forward to several things this week, so I'll probably have some more interesting things to post about next week. On Thursday my sibs Ashley, Luke, and I are the entertainment for a gathering in Salt Lake. We are very excited about it. My dad even went out and got us our Christmas present early- a SWEET sound system so we can all amp our violins. It's amazing!!! THANKS DAD!

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On Friday Scott and I are going to Reno/Fallon Nevada for a close friend's wedding! Love those! It will be great to see lots of friends and family. We were hoping to fly but unfortunately it would cost $600 for the two of us to fly to Reno!!! That is so crazy, it's usually a third that much. Darn.

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So...to wrap this up if anyone has any simple craft ideas, let me know!

OR...if you have a sweet name for Ashley, Luke and I's 'band' put it out there! Right now we are called Cutler Family Fiddlers, but we do more than just fiddling so we want to change that.

TDW (three day weekend)

Scott and I both had Friday off so we went on a GREAT weekend road trip up to Idaho to stay with Scott's family.

On Friday, we went to the Idaho Falls Parade of Homes. You can probably guess that Scott and I were in HEAVEN. Interior decorating is something that we both LOVE (Scott is even taking an interior design class this semester). We got some beyond-awesome ideas from things we saw :)

On Saturday, we woke up early and went golfing with Scott's brother Jeff, and three cousins. I was glad that Avrey came so that I wasn't the only girl. I think it was her first time golfing and she hit some great shots!

That night, we went to a demolition derby that cousin Cody entered. It was his first one- he was in a tiny subaru called "32 cents"...because that's what he spent on the car. Cody put on a great show, the crowd LOVED him. And he won! He seriously won- it was awesome. We all lost our voices cheering for him so loud.

We spent the night at Cody and Avrey's new house which was huge! Between the parade of homes and that, we are very very house hungry!

At church on Sunday, Julie was part of the primary program. There are few things as entertaining as watching those cute kids sing their hearts out (or cry their eyes out, as was the case for a few four year olds we saw). Julie looks so adorable right now because she is missing several teeth. Ah the joys of being six!

Hope you all had a nice weekend too!

p.s. shout out to this handsome brother...he is now 17!








Luke is talented, creative, funny, sensitive, cool, and we couldn't imagine life without him! He makes us so happy








I love my siblings SO MUCH!











p.s.s. these pics were all taken by ellie cutler photography

Bear Lake...and bacon

Well we just got back from a WONDERFUL vacation with my side of the family in Bear Lake. Scott and I didn't take a single picture, but my family did. I might try to steal a few of theirs to put on here. It was a blast.

One quick boast: Scott, Jeremy, and Luke (those are my two brothers) went on a bike ride AROUND THE ENTIRE LAKE! Wow. They rode 50 miles on Saturday morning. I am so proud of them! I rode 6 miles on Tuesday and was a little sore just from that... I can't imagine how they are feeling!

So...here is a picture that I stole from my friend Kym. She worked with us this summer as a marketing intern and there was never a dull moment with her around! We came away from the summer with many inside jokes.

Well last week, we finally tried something we've been talking about for a while. One morning on a radio station I heard the DJ's talking about a fad of eating bacon on maple bars. It sounded so gross to me, but the DJ's tried it and said they loved it.

We all wanted to try it for ourselves, and one morning Kym surprised us and brought in the maple bars and bacon.
You'll just have to take my word for it...it was SO GOOD! The 3 of us that tried it all liked it. In Kym's words "Its was just like having pancakes, syrup and bacon all in a neat little package...It was so good with the salty and sweet flavors, and the crunchy bacon with the soft doughnut."

Crazy I know.