Update on Recent Happenings

So, I really suck at blogging. I just feel like I don't have too much to write about and then I find myself two months later, and I suddenly have a ton. Anyway, here is our update from the past two months!

October:

• Went on my staff cruise to the Western Caribbean! So much fun! We stopped at Cozumel, Belize, Isla Roatan, and my favorite, Grand Cayman! I was absolutely wonderful. It was Michael's first time on a cruise so I was so excited to have him experience it. Cruises are my absolute favorite! The first thing I took him to on the ship was ice cream! He loved it. We loved every stop from shopping, cave tubing, Michael went scuba diving, and my personal favorite, swimming with the sting rays in Stingray city! So much fun!
• It was sad to come home, but we needed to, otherwise we might have gained 10 more pounds!

(kissed a stingray! 7 years good luck!)

• Thanksgiving was wonderful, at too much food, and loved hanging with the family!
• Black Friday Shopping!! Got lots of stuff for Christmas, including Michael's Christmas gift...Which I can't say or he will find out... and I almost finished ALL my christmas shopping!!
  
• I waited in line for 2 1/2 hours with my sister in law at Kohls waiting to check out just for my moms birthday gift! It was a super deal on a CHI hair straightener, and I fought tooth and nail to get it and got the last one!! So awesome!
• I then went shopping with my mom at 4, didn't get home until 9, slept for about 2 hours, and then went to the U of U football game which made me sick, literally, so Michael made me go home, take a bath, and then I slept for 14 hours straight! It was wonderful.
• A couple of weeks ago we had a HUGE windstorm up in our parts of town, with our area being one of the worst hit. We lost a few shingles, and a pine tree (which Michael decided to just cut down anyway). We were lucky compared to some others. We drove around in the morning and took some pictures. There were three semis overturned on the frontage road by our house... needless to say, I went to work a little late!
  

• And finally, We decorated for Christmas! (My tree was up the day after Thanksgiving, and my lights were on...) It is seriously my favorite time of year, and Michael loves it because I get so giddy! I am kind of a Light snob, and only like the white clear lights, and I personally think MY house is the cutest in the neighborhood! (we are in a secret competition with our neighbors, hehe)
  

(Isn't my house just so cute?!)

• And now, I am trying to finish out the semester strong (it isn't going so well) and Michael is working. I have been itching to go somewhere overnight, on a little getaway for quite some time, so hopefully that happens in the near future!
• I love this time of the year, and the meaning Christmas has. I am grateful for my savior and the opportunity we have to celebrate his birth!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! (and probably a happy new year, at the rate I go with blogging!)

Counting down the days...

We are counting down the days, minutes, tasks, anything really until we get to leave...

3 chapters to read
2 more dinners to make
2 work days
2 bags to pack
1 house to clean
1 test to take
... The list goes on an on, but the biggest one we are counting...
3 DAYS until...

We leave for HERE:
...and we board THIS:

We seriously cannot wait to go on our cruise.

My boss takes his staff on a cruise every other year, and this happened to be one of those years! We couldn't pass it up. So, Saturday at 7:05 am we depart for Tampa. Our ports will include: Belize, Grand Cayman, Isla Roatan, and Cozumel. It will be so nice to get away from work, school, and everyday life! So, now we continue to count down...

p.s. We aren't very good at remembering to take pictures, so hopefully we do better this trip and I can post some!

Holy War!

Who am I sir? A UTAH man am I! A Utah man sir and will be till I die! KI!YI!

IT'S HERE!! IT'S GAME DAY!! GO UTES!!!

My husband beat me...so I beat him back!

The other day, while driving to the grocery store, we pull out of our drive way, and drive down the road, about to turn on the frontage road to head off. Well, we pull up at the stop sign, and what do we see? This....

So, Michael decides to take this opportunity to punch my leg, and say "red!" This is fine and all, but then what comes up right behind it? This...!

That's right! He then proceeds with a "double whammy!" and punches me two more time! I thought he would be nice and "go soft" on his poor little wife, but no. He hits me as if I was anyone else! So, I look down the road, praying I see nothing else, but to my dismay, what do I see? You got it! About a bazillion more! All in a row, riding down our street, just like this was something they do on a regular basis! He continues punching me shouting off "red" "blue" "silver" "double whammy!" and so on. Finally I catch on, and decide that he wouldn't have the best of me. So, determined to get him back for the first 5 or so cars, I begin punching him back. And of course I wasn't going to go easy on him! I hit him in the shoulder in the same spot every time.

This continues on for some time, and by the end of it we are both whining to each other, me holding my leg and arm, and him rubbing his arm. Who knew we would both be bruised by the time we got to Harmons (which is about a mile from our house)!

After it all ended, we laughed (while whining to each other) and thought of how ridiculous we looked to those driving the VW's and thought of how many other couples this has happened to that day. Do you think they drive around in trains like that just to see how many people hit each other like that? I would!

Day Off

I love having days off. And today is no exception. As of right now, I am sitting at home, ( I love my house!) doing this...
Watching this...

Listening to this... ( love warm summer rain!)

And drinking one of these... (love me some coke with lime!)

Yup, I love my days off! My life couldn't be better!!

One Year

Last week was our FIRST YEAR ANNIVERSARY!! I can't believe it has already been a year! It has seriously flown by! I couldn't as for a better husband, he is seriously the BEST!

He tried to surprise me about St. George, but he told me accidentally a few days before we left. Anyway we left on Saturday, our anniversary, and headed to St. George. We checked in to the hotel we were staying at and chilled for a minute before he surprised me with tickets to Tuachann to see Grease! Before we left, I decided to give him the gift that I got him. It was super funny because we both got eachother watches! We laughed when we opened them, and then had to go size them before we left for the show. Super fun! We left for dinner we had a the theater which was good, not great, but fun to eat outside. The show was fun, but nothing like the movie.

The next day we laid in bed, went to breakfast, and took a nap and went swimming. We then decided to go golfing because we took our clubs. We went to dixie red hills course and did a round of 9. It was super fun to go golfing together, although neither of us played very well, but it was our first time going together!

The next day we went over to Zions National Park, and hiked up to the emerald pools. It was super hot, and NO cloud cover at all, but it was still fun. We had fun hiking around together and when we were finished, we had the BEST icecream. I am serious. If I could have it every day... I totally would!

We even saw this little guy along the side of the road! It was super cool, and we were so close! We had never really seen one out in the wild, so we got a little obsessed and took several pictures, but I will just put one up and spare you the rest!

The trip was super super fun, and it was so nice to get away together without school or work to think about. The last day we went to Red Cliffs, and hiked the waterfalls, but we got super wet, so we didn't think that taking our phones would be good, so we don't have any pictures, but it was so fun! We made it home safely and had to go back to work, and were so happy when we had to drop $1,400 on our Jeep, but thats life right? It was fun while it lasted! We also get to go to my paradise, LAKE POWELL, in just a couple of weeks with my family, so I will be sure to post pictures of that because I am sure it will be a BLAST!

Coming Soon...

Mike and I had a WONDERFUL weekend for our anniversary! Pictures and more to come!

Update

I guess its time for an update! Mike and I finished out the semester... barely! We seriously struggled to have any desire to finish, but we did! We are so happy to be done, for the summer for me, and to be GRADUATED for Mike! We now wonder what to do with ourselves every night, but it seriously is the best feeling in the entire world, not having to worry about homework every night. We finally got our new couch, and are loving it. We also decided (and by we I mean Mike) to buy a barbecue! We have really enjoyed it, and have used it a ton since we bought it! I need to decide what to put on my walls because I feel like they are so bare! oh well, it will come together slowly! Anyway, we don't have much of a life even though school is out. We just enjoy our couch and the new time we have to spend together!

Anticipation and Paint Cans

A couple weeks ago, after being super sick and laying on the couch for days, I decided that we needed a new couch NOW. I was tired of sitting on that thing seeing as how it is the most uncomfortable thing you could have ever imagined. So, after laying for days, I finally told Michael that we were going to buy one that night. After not too much hesitation, he gave in and we decided to run to Granite Furniture where we had seen one that we wanted. It was 7:15pm and the store closed at eight. Seeing as how we now live in Farmington, and the store was clear in West Jordan on 9000 S, we decided we needed to hurry down there to get there before they closed at 8:00. Yup, we got there in less than 25 min, and were there before they closed. After looking around a little bit we found one that was exactly what we were looking for! Since it had to be ordered we wouldn't get it for about three weeks, so we are still waiting in anticipation for it. However here is a picture of the one we will SOON (hopefully) be getting! On another note, we finally got around to painting some! I was super excited to start making it look like OUR house, adding our own little touches of things, and we finally started the task. I had originally wanted to paint the kitchen and bathroom, but since we decided to get the couch we figured we should probably do the family room instead of the bathroom. So, during spring break, my mom came up and we got to work! When we first started the family room we decided to go darker (going against what my mom suggested) and we absolutely HATED the color. It was like a flesh color... not what you really want on your wall... so we had to paint again. This time Michael got smart and he went to Home Depot, where he got the new primer/paint in one. It was AWESOME and we now have a wonderful color on the walls for our new couch to go in! Also, we painted the kitchen, after needing to go back to the store to fix the color, we finally got it right and we now have a beautiful new RED kitchen! I think its so cute. Not too much red, just an accent, something I have always wanted! A red kitchen! Now on to our other projects, the bathroom, our bedroom, and the living room! And hopefully my wonderful mother comes and helps again!! THANKS MOM for the help!

New House!!

Here it is! Our HOUSE! I love it! I was going to wait to put pictures up until we had everything put together, but who knows when that will be! So, here it is! I think its super cute and I LOVE it!(view from the deck, our backyard)

This is my new kitchen. I love it! I love the fridge, the DISHWASHER, and especially the counterspace!! LOVE IT!

(these two are extra bedrooms, yes, we have THREE extra bedrooms, and I think these ones are the cutest. LOVE the window seats!)

(master bath)

(the family room)

(my personal FAVORITE, the LAUNDRY room with our VERY OWN washer and dryer! LOVE the front loaders!)

There you have it! Our wonderful new home! So happy to be here and I LOVE the location! couldn't ask for anything better for us for our first house!

Train Trip!

So, I have been wanting to blog about this for a while, but I haven't gotten around to putting the pictures on the computer until now. Anyway we have been wanting to ride the front runner for the longest time, and we finally did it! Right before we went back to school in January, we decided that we should do it while we had the chance! So, we went to lunch rode trax to the SLC station, and hopped on the train and rode to Farmington! It was so much fun and I think you should ALL do it!

Here is a sequence of photos of our trip! Jenny and the kids were so nice! They picked us up and dropped us off at the station. We spent some time with them, and then came home. What a wonderful and fun trip! I HIGHLY suggest riding the train!

Making a House a Home!!

That's right! We are getting a house! We decided that we wanted to start looking around for a house a little while ago because the rates are pretty good right now and we were definitely sick of all the crap that we had been going through with student apartments and the lovely cinder block walls they have there. We went on our own to look at some houses and found a couple prospects, but then we found one we LOVED, but it was out of our price range. We were both sad, because we finally both agreed on one. But, a couple of days later the realtor of the house we loved called us back and told us the price had DROPPED! We decided to finally contact our realtor, and went out with him a couple weeks later. While we were out looking at homes with him, Michael and I kept going back to the house we had found on our own, saying things like "but in the other house..." or "At the other house we like this better...." and things like that. We decided to take our realtor the "Farmington" house (that's what we called it because that's where it is...) and the second he walked in and around in it, he knew what we really wanted, and that was this house. So, after much prayer, thought and fasting, we decided to go for it! We hope to close on the house this month and be out of the student apartments by the end of February. We are so excited, and couldn't be happier! While some may say we are cRaZy for going north when we both work and go to school in Salt Lake, in the long run we deiced it is where we would be happiest and could eventually raise a little family. We cant wait!!

(I will post pictures when we get moved in!)