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Christmas 2011

2012-01-20T20:03:00.013-07:00

Christmas in California (2011)

Christmas 2011 was our turn to be in California with the Smith family. We flew into Oakland, CA from Salt Lake City on Friday night the 23rd, and were able to stay all the way until the following Wednesday night. It was really nice seigneur my family and being able to spend some quality time back in the good 'ol bay area. My family planned some really fun activities for us to do while there, highlighted of course by the Christmas festivities.

We didn't do much Saturday morning or during the day o the 24th. We did visit my Mom while she was working her Saturday shift at Trader Joe's (see picture). For Christmas Eve Melissa and I watched "Charlie Brown's Christmas" as well as "White Christmas," two of our favorite Christmas movies. We also read our traditional Christmas Eve book, which this year was "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." We also exchanged Christmas Eve gifts with Melissa receiving a "Despicable Me" DVD and I received a SF 49ers sweatshirt. We also sang some Christmas hymns together as a family, while Melissa played he piano. Joining Melissa and I were Mom, Megan, and Kiely.

Christmas day included the traditional walking into the family room as a family to see what Santa left. Mon Took pictures as we walked in. After that we had breakfast with our traditional Christmas dished, then we all got dressed and ready to open presents. Opening presents last most of the day as we open presents one at a time oldest to youngest, with occasional breaks for other family members came over. We also took a break to play our traditional family football game in the backyard. We ended the day by eating our traditional Christmas dinner including ham and sparkling cider.

The day after Christmas we went to the San Jose Sharks game in San Jose at the HP Pavilion. It was Melissa's first hockey game and my first Sharks game since High School. Melissa stated that she had a good time, even though the Sharks lost.

2011 Christmas Parties

2012-01-15T16:59:00.008-07:00

Ward Christmas Party

Melissa and I were approached in November by the Ward Relief Society President and asked if we would be part of a committee to assist with planning for and organizing the Ward Christmas Party. We were asked becuase we were seen as ideal candidates to help out with the Party as we were told we we are fun and active couple, and didn't have any kids yet. Melissa and I said that we would be happy to help, although I was a bit hesitant as I was in the middle of my busiest semester of my Masters program. Melissa really likes organizing things, and I Thought that she may really enjoying helping out with this, so I didn't have any problem agreeing to help, secretly hoping that she would secretly be willing to do most of the work as I was busy with schoolwork! ;)

We worked mainly with one other couple on organizing the Ward Christmas party, and that was Blake and Chantel Merrill who are about our same age and also don't have any kids yet. Melissa and I ended up taking care of most of the decorations, and the Merrills took care of the food, publicity, as well as helping to decorate the Relief Society room for Santa Claus. We had the event at the Stake Center and had to get their early on the day of the event to help with the preparations. Children lined up and waited for Santa Claus for about 20 minutes as Santa went to the wrong building! It was fund seeing the kids get so excited over seeing Santa Claus. They lined up, took turns sitting on his lap, told him what they want, and then they received a candy cane to boot.

The Christmas party ran smooth overall, despite the fact that Melissa and I were very nervous. We ate roast beef, rolls, salad, and dessert for dinner. The were some performances put on by different groups from the ward, and everyone seemed to think that everything was a success, including the decorations. Overall, it was a fun experience and a great way to celebrate Christmas with the Ward!

Work Christmas Parties

I had no less than three different Christmas work parties to attend to this year. One was for Rain, a company that I am currently interning for doing UX (User Experience) work. It was kind of weird attending a work party after only being with the company for a week, and not really knowing anybody's names, but it was still fun. The two owners handed out some funny awards at the end of the party after a catered dinner. I received training diapers for my awards to help me with my UX"training during my internship."

The second and third work Christmas parties were with the LDS Church, I CS Department, where I was doing my other internship. There was a large party for all of the ICS Division where we were bussed to the Conference Center in Salt Lake, watched a small devotional with a choir, as well as had a catered meal. The third was with my department within ICS. There was a choir that came in from the local Riverton, UT High School and sang Christmas songs to us. We also had a catered meal and wrapped some "Sub-For-Santa" gifts that we had previously purchased Cutler's did not have Christmas party this year, but did give out Christmas bonuses! ;)

Thanksgiving - 2011

2012-01-03T21:58:00.005-07:00

Thanksgiving Feast and Football

Thanksgiving 2011 was spent with he Cutler family. PJ invited everyone to play flag football in Orem, which has become a tradition of its own. He has many High School friends from Mountain View High that get together to play in a filed right next to the High School in Orem. There were a good 50-60 people that shopwed up and we ended up breaking into 6 teams to play on three different fields divided up by cones. We had a ton of fun. Present were PJ, McKay, Jordan and Christian. Scott was sick ad couldn't play unfortunately.

After the game we helped Dale and Mindy take care of a neighbor's yard who had broken her foot and lived alone. It was there neighbor who shares a fence behind them. We raked up leaves and helped clean leaf blow the patio for here so that she could see her yard again and didn't lose any grass and plants because of the fallen leaves. It felt good to do some service for the holiday.

We had a nice Thanksgiving dinner. We started off by going around the table and everyone stated some things that they were grateful for. I think that this is a nice tradition that the Cutler's have. We had a really nice dinner and Melissa and I ended up playing games with Mindy and Jordan the day after since we all had work off. We played Clue, Sequence, and "Nertz." Melissa and I did trying going to some stores late on "Black Friday" to see if there were any good deals left, but unlike last year there really weren't so we only bought some small things for Christmas gifts and the home. Melissa bought some Christmas glasses to match our Christmas plate set but the pattern came off in the dishwasher. Bummer.

Tragalga Fun! (With Jordan)

2011-11-27T10:27:00.007-07:00

Trafalga Fun With Jordan

Melissa and I had a fun mid-week date where we went to Trafalga fun center in Orem to play some mini golf and games. We brought Jordan along as we had not spent any one-on-one time with him since has had come back from his mission. We also ate at an all you can eat pizza cafe (Pizza Pie Cafe) which in Provo which is one of my favorite places to eat. It was Veterans eat free night so it was packed. We had free passes to Trafalga due to purchasing the "Pass of all Passes" this summer for the family reunion. This past lest you get into several entertainment venues in Utah County and allowed us to play mini gold and ride the virtual roller coaster at Trafalga for free! We also received some free tokens for filling out a survey and played the arcade version of "Let's Make a Deal." Melissa ended up winning at golf. Was a fun night.

Halloween 2011

2011-11-05T12:36:00.008-06:00

Jed and Kim Robinson Nathan and Tiffany Clark Melissa's Gypsy Costume - Sowed by herself! Homemade root beer was brewin' At the Ward Halloween party Doughnut eating contest At the end of the Wizard of Oz decor at work Melissa's delicious Halloween cake Yellow brick road -- a very cool set-up done by employees at work The haunted cubicles built by employees at work Dressed up for Halloween at work. Pictured: co-workers Tom and Carrie More from the haunted tunnel at work Built in TV screens from the Oz

Halloween 2011 !

At Work in the ICS Dept. for the LDS Church

Halloween 2011 was a ton of spooky fun. We had a work party on the Friday before Halloween from 2-5:00pm. Workers showed up with their families to go Trick-or-Treating at the desks on all four floors as well as to see all of the decorations. There was a decorating contest that gave a pizza party to the winning team who produce's the best Halloween decorations, and I was surprised at how all-out some of the teams went. There were multiple spook alleys complete with black lights for effect, skeletons with other decorations, and even a Wizard of OZ theme that you had to see to believe (see pictures above). These space in-between cubicles was decked out with cardboard that included a yellow-brick road, doorways, and even TVs in the walls that were playing the Wizard of OZ movie.

Ward Halloween Party

I dressed up to work in my classic Spartacus outfit but went as a army man to the Canyon Point Ward Halloween party. The ward Halloween was not as fun as last years but still was neat to attend. The Ward members really dressed up much more this year compared to last year. the served Navajo tacos and I participated in a fun doughnut eating contest as one of the activities. I amazed everyone when I ate the doughnut in just one bite. Melissa wore for the first time her Gypsy costume which was made from a pattern and material that she purchased at the fabric store. She always does such a great job sewing her own costumes and received lots of compliments on it. It took her two weeks to complete but her hard work really paid off.

Family Halloween Party

Every year since we have been married Melissa and I have hosted a Halloween party, adn this year was no exception. As we always do, we invited friends from the ward, made homemade root beer, Halloween cake, as well as watched a scary movie. We watched "The Ring" which I first heard about on my mission to the Philippines back in 2002 as everyone had a pirated copy out there. I saw it for the first time 10 years later and enjoyed it although was mildly disappointing that it was not as scary as I thought it would be.

Halloween night we received way more Trick-or-Treaters this year than last year since weather was warmer than it was last year. There are also more houses in our neighborhood that have been built. I real;y enjoy giving out candy to little kids as I lived so far in the country growing up that we never received any Trick-or-Treaters so it is still a novelty to me. Overall Halloween 2011 great fun and I am already looking forward to next year.

California Vacation 2011 Day #5

2011-10-22T09:12:00.007-06:00

Oakland Athletics Baseball

One of my favorite things to do as a kid was to watch A's baseball, and I have many fond memories of attending the games at the coliseum in Oakland. On the final activity day of our family vacation, we attended an A's game as a family. Mom purchased ManSmith Tri-Tip sandwiches (a family favorite! from Hollister, CA) and we loaded other snacks and goodies and went to the game. The A's played the LA Angels, if I remember correctly and won the game! It was a very fun night and brought back a lot of childhood memories.

On the way home we stopped at Krispi Kream to get some doughnuts. In the same parking lot I saw a Jollibee fast-food joint. Jolibee was started in the Philippines and was their equivalent of McDonalds. It was fun to see one again, especially stateside. We finished off the night in my backyard at home in Morgan Hill by the campfire, roasting marshmallows and laughing as a family

California Trip 2011 Day #4

2011-10-20T19:36:00.008-06:00

Our Hearst Castle Adventure

A Brief History

Day #4 of our California adventure took us down to beautiful San Louis Obispo, CA. It was about a 4-5 hour trip south of San Jose to get there, but i was worth it. Hearst Castle sits on top of a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean with its own private beach. It was built by William Randolph Hearst, A newspaper Tycoon who made his fortune through the print industry when it was the main source of media. He built his mansion over several years on cattle land that his parents owned, a and his descendants still own and ranch on today (800 acres I believe). We had to take a bus to get up there and you pass up cattle on the windy road taking you up the hill to the cattle. Hearst even had his own private zoo around the land and you can still see the cages where he kept some of the animals. There are still some wild zebras that roam the land that descended from his own pets. Popular guests including politicians and movie actors were constant guests at thehouse as Mr. Hearst loved to entertain. Hearst hired a popular architect form San Francisco who spent years designing, building, and renovating his mansion. And it shows...

The Grounds

The castle grounds themselves were amazing. There was a huge pond complete with Koi and lilies. There was also multiple guest homes, each small mansion in their own right that stood apart from the main castle where his famous guests would stay. The grounds were designed to look like ancient Greece with tile floors, statues, pottery, etc. everywhere. We toured the ground first and then made our way inside the main castle. The view form the grounds was breathtaking as one side you could see the Pacific Ocean and on the other you see some beautiful valleys of San Lois Obispo. There were also two pools, one outdoor and on indoor underground. Both were huge and elaborately decorated.

The Castle

You will have to defer you to the pictures as I cannot given apt description. The roofs were made of cathedral ceilings purchased in auctions for the rich and shipped from Europe. The dinning room looked like the dinning hall from the Harry Potter movies. There was also a private game room with billiard tables as well as a private theater where silent films were played (Hearst was a big fan). Guests would be taken from room to room, playing cards and drinking cocktails, eating an elaborate dinner, playing billiards, as well as finishing the night in the movie theater around 1:00 am upon which time Hearst would say to his guests: "The house is yours!" and set them free to explore. Main it would have been fun to attend one of those parties.Every room has an elaborate roof, some of which were under restoration.

We stopped at a quaint little town on our way home and ate some pizza at a small restaurant. Overall it was a great day!

California Trip 2001 Day #3

2011-10-16T21:31:00.005-06:00

We attended the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk this day. I have to admit that that Boardwalk is hands down one of my favorite places on earth and vising places like this always make me want to move back to Cali. We drove down to Santa Cruz and has a small picnic on the beach. Then we all turned in Pepsi cans to get discounted tickets into the Boardwalk and enjoyed a night roller coasters, bumber cars, a haunted mansion, a sky tram, etc. The whole night was a blast and Melissa and I bought hoodies at the gift shop for souvenirs. Scott and his family also joined us there. A moive at the beach was offered but we decided not to stay for that. Things really cool off at night there and the wind blows in from the Pacific Ocean so we were really glad that we bought those hoodies. The most fun roller coaster was of course the famous big dipper, one of the oldest wooden\ roller coasters on the US and featured in the famous 80's vampire film "The Lost Boys." You can see a picture of us on it above.

Jordan's Homecoming, our "Staycation," and Melissa's 26th Birthday

2011-10-16T21:04:00.005-06:00

Jordan Cutler came back from his mission on September 21st and the family met him at the SLC airport upon his arrival! It is good to have him back and to have another RM in the family. Melissa's 26th birthday was just a week after that and as we all know how much she loves her birthday she joked that Jordan coming home overshadowed it but she was okay with is just for this once ;) The Cutler family organized a great "staycation" for Jordan's arrival which consisted of several fun events locally. This allowed us to keep the vacation cheap as well as focus on quality time together.

We spent four days at the Cutler's cabin in Timberlakes, located in the mountains above Heber, UT. It is a brautiful areas and it was a great time of year to go as the leaves up there were just beginning to change colors. You cna see a little bit of this beauty in the picture that I took on an ATV rive that Melissa and I took. Activities during the staycation included attending the BYU vs. Utah st. football game as LES, watching General Conference and attending Priesthood session while the girls shopped in Park City. ATV riding, as well as wave running at Deer Creek Reservoir. Scott Cutler has just bought back from a customer some waverunners that the Cutlers sold to him about 10 years ago. He spent time the days previous to the trip fixing them up so that the family could enjoy riding them on the lake. I think that waverunnig was definitely everyone's favorite activity of the trip. The weather was just perfect on the lake and the water was like glass as almost nobody else was there on that Friday afternoon. Oh yeah, we also took family pictures at a cool barn in Mapleton as pictured above.

We also did a little work around the cabin fixing up the patio and rockwork. Overall it was a great time and a nice way to welcome Jordan back form his mission to Chile.

Hiking Mount Timpanoogas

2011-09-18T22:31:00.006-06:00

At the end of August 2011, Melissa and I hiked Mount Timpanoogas on a sunny Saturday morning. We went with Butch and his wife,. Butch is a co-worker with Melissa at Cutler's and a friend of Dale's for years. This was my first excursion up the mountain but the 3rd time for Melissa who was successive in her first two attempts, although it was on the other side of the Mountain on both climbs.

I was excited for my first climb as hiking Timp was something that I had wanted to do for a while. Timp is actually one of the tallest mountains in the state of Utah and has a legendary view from the top. We started off the hike at 7:15 am and didn't get back until close to 8:00 PM, though we had to stop several times for different reasons. There was an unbelievable amount of traffic hiking the mountain as this must have been the day that everyone in Utah County decided to go. There was also still snow parts that we had to cross over while hiking making parts of the journey difficult and even dangerous. But we traveled on and both made it t to the top! It was a great view. We ran out of water and both got major blisters on the way down so we were definitely ready to go home when we finally finished the hike. We both also got badly sunburned. Not sure if I would do the hike again, but at least I can finally say that I have done it once.

Movie Night in the Park

2011-08-24T20:51:00.003-06:00

08/23/11 -- Movie Night at Rock Canyon Park

On this night we attended a movie in the park at Rock Canyon Park above the Provo Temple. These aren't our best pictures but you can see the screen that the movie was projected on. In the second photo taken from my iPhone, the flash was blinding us. Good times though. There was probably about 200 hundred people there all lying on blankets in the summer night on a green hillside at the park. The movie was "Despicable Me," which is probably one of our favorites. The night was warm and great for a move in in the park. We also had a great view of the stars and it reminded us of the time that we came here as students at BYU and first held hands. On a side note, we saw a comet in the night sky from the park right before the movie began. It was bright and reddish-orange. It was definitely cool site and a memorable night.

California Trip 2011 Day #2: Birthday Party and Roasting Mallows

2011-08-15T22:28:00.006-06:00

On the second day of our California trip we celebrated the birthdays of both Christian and Katrina. After going to the zoo the day before we decided to have a day of relaxing lounging around the house. This also happens to be a favorite pastime of the Smiths. Lounging around includes but is not limited to: playing cards, bar-b-que, strawberries and dip, homemade ice-cream, and of course roasting marshmallows on an open fire. Katrina and Christian both have birthdays in July so we had a combined party which included opening presents and eating chocolate cake while most of the family was at the house. This was a celebration of Christian's 2th birthday. A popular card game this trip was "Nerts". Sitting in the backyard and enjoying the view of Rosemary's backyard is always a favorite event for us to do. The views are great and when the weather is nice you just can't beat enjoying the deck furniture and the sights and sounds. The scenery and weather there always makes Christian want to move back to California. The whole family had a great time laughing, enjoying good food, and just being together.

San Francisco Zoo 7/11/11

2011-08-10T10:21:00.006-06:00

07/11/11 California Trip Day #1 Our first stop on our California trip to visit Christian's family was to go to the San Francisco Zoo. I don't know if we could have chosen a colder day to go. There was cloud cover, winds, and even a bit of rain. We donned hoodies and determined not to let cold bay area weather affect our enjoyment of the zoo. We saw lots of fun animals including giraffes, peacocks, penguins, tigers, lions, kangaroos, and much more. There was even an exhibition on tarantulas (not for the feint of heart). We were joined lots of family although not all could attend. We had a tailgate in the parking lot for lunch which was fun. We also took as many funny picture as we could. Melissa ended up buying a stuft baby giraffe as a souvenir. She is a big fan of giraffes to being with and really enjoyed seeing them at the zoo. Overall a great a great day at the zoo despite the weather ;)

Les Mis for the not-miserables

2011-06-06T22:40:00.004-06:00

Melissa and I had the privilege to attend a Broadway production on Les Mis with Mindy and Andrea two weeks ago. It was my first experience ever seeing the musical, and it was an amazing experience as advertised. I had read an abridged version of Victor Hugo's novel but never seen the musical production of it. The production was in Salt Lake City at the Capitol Theater, and was a tough ticket to come by as a Broadway production had not come to Utah for about a decade and was only here for a week. Luckily Mindy was able to secure some tickets the morning of the first day that it came out.

We started the night by meeting at the Cheesecake Factory in Sandy for dinner. I couldn't believe how popular that place was. After waiting 45 minutes for dinner we sat down and had a great meal. We left the restaurant and arrived for the show just in time. Our seats were on the bottom level and I thought were pretty good, although everyone else seemed to have preferred a seat in the balcony. The show started promptly at 8:00 pm with a short intermission that ended without warning as everyone had to scramble to get back to their seats. The music was superb, as you would imagine for a Broadway production and seemed to follow the storyline of the book as far as I can remember apart for some small deviations that were pretty inconsequential.

It was pouring rain when we left the theater so everyone scrambled to get to the parking garage across the street. There was a man playing bag pipes outside which I thought was unique and I regretted not having any change to give. We had to wait several minutes in line to get on the elevator to a lower level in the parking garage as there were not stairs to be found (fire hazard you would think?) and we ended up getting off on the wrong level (mostly my fault). When we did find our care Mindy realized that she lost the parking stub so we had to pay full price of $15 to leave.

Overall it was a memorable night and I am glad that I have finally seen the show in person.

Sunflower update

2011-04-14T21:42:00.000-06:00

Since this was suppose to be a contest I thought I'd actually put some of my sunflower pictures up. I think Christian forgot whose were whose and it looks like he only put his own up. Great way to win the contest honey ;) So to make the contest a little more fair here are some more to choose from.

So I know these last two aren't really sunflowers, but they were some flowers that we planted arround our house and I just really like them.

Sunflower Photo Contest

2011-04-11T00:21:00.005-06:00

I found these photos on our computer and it reminded me of a fun activity that Melissa and I did during summer of last year, our first summer in our home. We had some weeds growing in our backyard that sprouted and turned out to be wild sunflowers. Most of our neighbors dug theirs out and tossed them, but we let them grow as we thought that they were kind of neat (they have since been removed once they died). One day I decided to challenge Melissa to a photo contest since we both like photography and were looking for something to do. We got out our cameras and the challenge was to see who could take the most picturesque photo of the sunflowers. Here are the results, you be the judge.

California Adventure!

2011-03-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

The month of February was a busy month for us. The best part was our trip to California to see Christian's brother Stephen get married to Katrina. After our last trip to California for Thanksgiving, we decided that we should fly from then on, after we got stuck in a snow storm. So the trip there was much more pleasant especially for me thanks to Dramamine. We arrived late Thursday night and visited with his other brother Ryan who had flown in from the Cayman Islands. After talking with him this trip we are totally planning a trip out there. The next day Katrina did my hair while Christian helped yet another brother Devin move into his new house, which they had just closed on the day before. Christian then went to the rehearsal which was where he first learned he was to give a reading at the wedding. We had a dinner and then everyone went home to rest for the big day.

The morning was pretty relaxing. I got bombarded from all of Christian's nephews and finally gave in to cuddle and watch a movie (such a hard life I lead). After everyone got ready we headed to the church. It was in a catholic church, which I had never been to one before so it was very strange but beautiful with all the stain glass windows. It was just like you see in the movies with a complete wedding party and everyone standing and looking back at the bride. She was beautiful and Stephen looked completely happy. It was a Christian ceremony but had some very Catholic influences. The congregation would quite often repeat back what the preacher said, which was very different for me. Christian read a scripture. Vows were said and then it was "you may kiss the bride." We then headed to a beautiful golf course for the reception. It was quite different from the receptions I am used to. For most of the weddings I have been to they are more of a open house. This was very formal with toasts and speeches. It was very classy and beautiful. They were serving champagne and Martinellies for the toasts and what made me laugh is they ran out of Martinellies. For most of the weddings they do they just have to serve it to the children. They weren't suspecting so many guest not to drink, they actually had to run out and buy more. They had a dance afterwords which was a lot of fun. Then we got fro-yo( every one's favorite ice-cream place) on the way home and crashed on the couch after a tiring but great day.

The following Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday and Christian's brother Devin is a huge Steelers fan. So we thought it would be really funny to dress up and decorate all in green for the Green Bay Packers. We had gotten green wigs and made our own t-shirts, it was so much fun. Christian would only wear the sweat bands I made for him. It was great to see Devin's face. The sad part was no one there really liked the Green Bay Packers, it was all for a joke. We felt pretty bad though when the Steelers ended up loosing.

The following day was our last day there, and since we had to fly our in the mid afternoon, we didn't go on any crazy adventures like we usually try to do. Instead I took a long walk around Christian's neighborhood with his mom and brother Ryan and sister n law Betsy. It was so beautiful, oh and I should mention the weather was perfect the whole weekend in the mid 70's. It was great considering when we flew out of Utah is was in the mid teens. Seeing all the green finally made me see why Christian loves it so much. It is I think the prettiest time of the year to visit.

We then went and played miniature golf and had some amazing geloto before we flew back. I think this trip was one of my favorite times we had ever visited. The last two times both Christian and I had gotten major colds and felt so sick. This time we were both healthy and enjoying all the fun times. We hope to visit again soon this summer and are looking forward to April when his family will be coming for his sister's college graduation from BYU.

House Painting!

2011-02-27T22:09:00.012-07:00

Melissa and I finally got to painting some rooms in the inside of our house this past week. It is something that we have been meaning to do for a while, along with several other projects, but are just now getting to. We had the choice to pay to have our house painted in a three-tone manner when we had it built, but being the frugal people that we are we decided to forego paying a contractor to paint it and decided to do it ourselves. It ended up being a fun project and costing us under $100! Our ceiling, baseboards, and walls were all white so all we had to do was paint the walls our chosen color and we had an instance three-tone effect. We had trouble deciding on the color at first as sometimes Melissa and I have such different tastes. So to simplify, Melissa went to Lowe's and got some color swabs to limit out options, and then we choose our color from there. We wanted something simple yet elegant.

We started out by taping off the ceilings and baseboards, as well as laying tons of newspaper so as not to drip paint in unwanted places. Then we painted the rooms in a system where I painted the edges and Melissa painting the insides of the walls. The color we choose was supposed to be a light cream color but ended up being more yellow than we had expected, especially when the sun shone on it. We weren't sure if we liked it at first but after getting used to it we now love it. It is amazing what color can do to bring a room to life. It also feels good to tackle and complete a project on your own now and again as well.

House Pictures As Promised

2011-01-19T21:15:00.000-07:00

We've had a lot of people ask to see pictures of our house so I thought I'd just post a few year while I was in the blogging mood. I also thought it would be fun to show pictures of it in different stages.

New Year Resolutions

2011-01-19T21:01:00.000-07:00

The new year always brings new opportunites to improve our lives. I'm typically not really that into making New Year's resolutions mostly because I believe people tend to pick unreasonable goals and never seem to acomplish them. And I'm kind of agains making goal only once a year. I think if you want to improve your life you can start any time of the year. On the other hand Christian is really goal oriented and wanted to make some family goals and one of them was to start blogging again. Its been almost a year since our last post and I appologize. A lot has happened in the last year. Christian started his masters degree, switched jobs a couple of times, and now works for ebay and is really enjoying it. He hopes to be able to get a job there as a interaction designer when he finishes his masters. Which is only a year away hurray!! We also put in our front yard this year. We had some leaning errors but overall I think it looks awesome. Its been a lot of fun for me decorating our home. I also planted flower gardens all around our house, so all through summer I was busy with yard work.

We only got to go and visit Christian's family for Thanksgiving this last year, so we have a few more trips planned for this next year. Including his brother's wedding which is only in 2 weeks! We are so excited for Stephen and Katrina. They were in Utah this last year and we really enjoyed having them so close and are sad that they are back in California now, but are happy for them still.
It is still just Christian and I in our family but we hope to add to it this year. As for my family we will be adding a niece and a nephew which we are so excited about. Baby chloe as she is known as will be born in a little under a month. We just found out yesterday that my sister will be having a boy in July so we don't know his name yet but are just as excited for him to come.

Christian and I have been primary teachers for almost a year now and love it. We taught the five turning six year olds this last year and now have the 4 turning 5 year olds. They are so sweet and bring such happiness into our lives. Our magnet board is covered with pictures they draw for us. Children are so sweet and bring the spirit into our lives like no one else can.

Christian and I really enjoy watching movies together and spend a lot of our free time doing that. Just a little plug for the Spanish Fork Theater, we love having Monday Movie Night there. Its only 3 dollars for tickets, drinks and popcorn. And its not like its only movies no one wants to see. They are all new releases.We love to tell anyone we can about how much we like this theater.

This last Christmas I was really blessed to recieve a piano for Christmas. Its amazing to see the difference in our home. I love playing it and love the spirit it brings into our home. I hope to become better now that I can practice. Christian continues to play the guitar and has become really good.
Well this is just a little bit of what we have been up to in the last year. Kind of like a really late Christmas Card.

Sweet Success

2010-02-12T22:09:00.000-07:00

So this last week I made a new friend in our ward and we decided to make suckers for Valentine's Day. It was so much fun that the first time around we got totally destracted and burned the first batch. The second batch turned out much better. I am now a new fan of suckers.

No More Newspaper

2010-02-12T21:59:00.001-07:00

So If you'd been to our house in the last two months it will look totally differnt now. Say good bye to the newspaper hurray! For the last two months people would always laugh when they'd come to our house because we have had newspaper taped up to the windows as blinds. Yes we were totally aware of how ghetto it looked but we would laugh and tell people we had them custom made, that we had to pay extra for the classified and funny section :) But finally this last week I decided I had had enough. I know your asking how we could wait so long, and wondering how we really put up with the newspaper so long, but really it was pretty funny, and thats just some of the fun with having a new house right? Or so we thought. So anyway I ordered the blinds and borrowed the drill and went to work. Its kind of funny, but I really like using a drill, I feel so impowered, like I could do anything. After about 2 hours and only putting up three blinds, my hands started loosing feeling. I decided there are cooler things then being able to use a drill, like having your husband use the drill :) So now our house looks so pretty, all except one window which its blind somehow got deleted grrrr so that one will be coming soon.

Before

& After

As I Promised

2010-02-12T21:38:00.002-07:00

So here are some fun pictures as I promised from our Christmas Vacation and other fun things we have been doing.

Alactraz Island

The Sun Setting In San Francisco

This is us in front of the ferries that take you to the island, you can also see the islan in the background.

For the tour they give you head phones and walk around the prison as they narrate the history behind the prison.

They had rows and rows of cells like these.

This is a picture of one of the most famous escapes. The prisoners made fake heads of themselves and placed them in their beds, when the guards couldn't wake them up they went to shake them, when the head flew off the guard about had a heart attack. Apparently the prisoners climed up some utility pipes to the roof. They also made homemade rafts out of coats. They were never caught or heard of again. Some believe they went to South America as they were studying Spanish right before the escape. Others believe they died in the freezing water.

This is what Christian looks like when I come to visit him :)

This is a picture from the island with San Francisco in the Background. This is what the prisoners would see everday as they looked out the window. Less than a mile away, yet so far away.

While waiting to see wicked we walked around San Francisco.

As I was taking this picture some Asian guy came up to me and started swearing at me. Got to love San Francisco.

Then came the highlight of the day... We finally got to see wicked!

We're Alive I Promise

2010-02-10T13:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry I know its been sooo long since we last posted something but now that we have a new computer and can upload pictures faster we're going to start blogging again hurray! SO quick update... November 2009 We offically became home owners!!! It is so crazy to think that we actually have a house. Everyday we come up with new things we love about our house, and only a few that we don't- like gas bills :( Its been so much fun to get things put up and decorate, I think now that our house has doubled my decorating budget needs to double :) I don't know what Christian will think of that but hey its worth a try right? I'll post some pictures later to show all the fun stuff we've been doing. Decemeber 2009 So December was crazy for us getting everything moved in and set up as well as Christmas! This year we spent Christmas in California which was so much fun. I missed the snow but it was worth it. We did a lot of fun things while there. On Christmas Eve we went to Alcatraz Island and toured the prison and island. It was fun cause we had just watched the Rock a movie about the prison so it was fun to see it in person. Its a good thing we did that first cause that night I ended up getting a cold which got worse all through Christmas day. I wasn't feeling well but Christmas is always so much fun, Christian and me both have the same traditions so we lucked out that way. Each person opens one present at a time starting with the youngest. It takes a lot longer though for Christian's family I think it was seven o clock that evening before everyone had opened all the presents. We had a huge family diner and then played a white elephant game. Probably one of my favorite things we got to do was go see Wicked the musical. It just so happened to be playing in San Francisco while we were there. I was so excited because I had been trying to see this play for 3 years now. I think I went through a whole bag of cough drops during it but it was so amazing. January 2010 New Years we spent with my family up at our cabin. Its too bad its been such a low snow year we didn't get to do too much sledding. I was ok cause I was still getting over being sick. The rest of January was pretty much filled up with getting back to work and getting more stuff for our house set up. I think we are officially unpacked! We have spent alot of our time playing ping pong on our new table and Shooting hoops on our Double Shot Basketball game. Christian usually beats me in Ping Pong but then I kick his trash at basketball :) Well there is a quick update on whats been going on in our lives I'll post pictures when I get home from work.

What Are The chances?

2009-06-12T23:44:00.001-06:00

So we recently had a "what are the chances of that happening" experiences. Almost two months ago we lost my camera. Christian had borrowed it to go to a motor cross race with my dad and brothers. He then went to work. Well the following Monday we went test driving cars and I remember seeing a beautiful sunset and was sad cause Christian had forgot to give me back my camera. We went home and searched everywhere. Christian thought he'd given it back but we couldn't find it anywhere. We searched our whole house for days it was like it disappeared into thin air. So just last week Best Buy was having a camera sell and we decided to give in and buy a new camera. The day after opening it I get a call from my mom saying "you'll never believe what just showed up at my house... your camera!" But what is even more amazing than getting our camera back is how it ended up at her house. Apparently that day we went test driving it had fallen out of my purse in the car. Maybe I had forgotten it was there, or christian didn't tell me he put it back in my purse but either way we both didn't know it was there. The guys at the dealership went through our pictures and recognized a guy they worked with that was in one. They gave it to him, who happened to me a neighbor of my mom's and had come to our wedding reception and had been in a picture there. They didn't know it was our camera but still decided to drop it by my mom's and of course she knew it was mine and so gave me the call. Its amazing how things work out sometimes.

So since we hadn't had our camera for a few months here are the pictures that would have been posted earlier had we had it. -or maybe they wouldn't have but I'm taking the opportunity now.

This is us at the top of Squaw Peak, It was my first time there, good thing it was with my husband ;) Making it all the better.

This is a picture of the amazing Sun set we saw up there.

This was us up at General Conference in April

This was our day up in Salt Lake

We had gotten a key to win a Free Car here's me Wishing....

and here's me with no car. But that's ok a drunk girl up there kept introducing me as Miss Idaho so that was fun. It was a beautiful sun set that evening as well especially with the temple and conference center in front

This is my little brother when he was ordained an elder-we're so proud of him, and my niece who had to be in the picture.

I'm sure going to miss this guy when he leaves on his mission to Chili

We also got to go bowling with some good friends in the ward this last week. It was so much fun even though we all had pretty bad games.