Our First Christmas present & Tagged

1.) For our Christmas present from my sister, Annaliese, offered to paint a room for us. The room she painted was our main floor bathroom and we gave her an extra challenge because we picked out this really cool looking textured "suede" paint which we had really liked in one of our friend's house. So, Annaliese came over and slaved away for hours while I got to play with my adorable little neice, Addie, they spent the night and she slaved away again the whole next morning. It turned out really awesome. I don't know if you can see the texturedness from the picture but it looks really cool in person, so THANK YOU ANNALIESE!!

2.) I have been tagged several times on this 8 things tagged and each time I have had good intentions of doing it but never followed thru, so here I go. (They have also all been different 8 things so I am going just do the ones I liked)

8 Favorite Books

1. Ender's game

2. Pride & Prejudice

3. Count of Monte Cristo

4. I have liked a lot of books by Harlan Coben recently

5. Kite runner and another book by the same author that I can't remember the name of right now.

6. I can't think of any more right now, I've read so many books that they all tend to get blurred after a while, I am sure I am forgetting one of my favorites.

8 things that happened yesterday

1.) went to work in a blizzard practically, was tailed by a snow plower that wasn't plowing

2.)went to Walmart, finally bought some tights, I was much warmer the rest of the day, amazing how dressing warmer makes the winter a little more bearable too bad it has taken me like 8 years to figure this out.

3.)drove home from work

4.) offered to baby-sit Addie for Annaliese so she could have girls night out

5.) got invited to enrichment by my neighbor I am trying to be friends with.

6) asked Ryan if he wanted to watch addie while I went to relief society dinner, (and asked Annaliese if that was ok)

7) Went to the dinner with my two neighbors ate yummy food and then right as the spritual part was going to start got a call from ryan saying to come home as he wasn't sure what to do with a crying baby.

8) came home calmed Addie down much to Ryan's amazement, it must be a girl thing, watched re-runs of the Office, hung out with annaliese when she came to pick up Addie, then went to bed with the kitchen messy from our cooking adventures of our first time making sugar cookies the night before.

8 things to look forward to

1.) Christmas

2) New Year's eve party we want to have

3.) starting a new year- crazy how fast time goes- following thru on my new year resolutions

4) hanging out with my friend Nicole in town for the holidays

5) hanging out with my cousin Arielle coming to town in Jan

6) our new tv we are buying for our christmas present to each other, admittly Ryan is way, way more excited about this than I am.

7) my work trip to Spokane, get to hang out with orson while I am there.

8) California trip in January, I'm tagging along on a work trip of Ryan's

8 things on my wish list

1. a million dollars :) (if I got this item it negates the following)

2. cruise with my husband ( and friends if any of them want to come)

3. new pair of jeans

4. house decorations

5. A baby (this list is not in order I should add)

6. I'm feeling greedy, should I say world peace now or solving world hunger

7. better economy would be nice although I am enjoying the gas prices lately

8. if I get some of the above I'd be pretty happy

8 things I love about winter

I don't think so, any one who knows me knows anything I put here would be a lie, I'm ok with it until after Christmas and then I hate it.

8 restaraunts

1. Outback

2. Tree Room (a once a year opportunity)

3. Red Robin

4. Olive Garden

5. Thai village

6. Texas Road house

7. Goodwood BBQ

8. Anything mexican

9. Kneader's bakery

8 TV Shows I watch

1. The office

2. 30 Rock

3. Oprah

4. Grey's Anatomy

5. What not to Wear

6. HGTV (sad but true)

7. Chuck (Annaliese has got me into liking this as of recently)

8. Kath & Kim

8 places to visit

1. Tahiti

2. Italy

3. Paris

4. Ireland

5. England

6. Hawaii

7. New York & DC again

8. New Orleans because of their rating of the #1 Murder Capital in the US, Oh yea and to visit Annaliese, Spencer & Addie while they are there.

8 People I tag

1. Ryan

2. Orson

3. Penny

4. Mom

5. Nicole

6.Kirsten

7. April

8. Richard

The Best Meal of the Year

and no its not Thanksgiving or Christmas. So, for the past several years my company has gone to the Tree Room for our Christmas Party and it is honestly the best meal I have of the year. I look forward to it all year long. I felt a little silly taking a picture of my food but I had to do it. Now that I am a blogger I take way more pictures than I ever used to. Anyways, for those who don't know the Tree Room is at the Sundance Resort up in the mountains and it is a 5 star restaraunt and I don't know what half the things on the menu are but they are delicious and is served in courses. One main entree alone (what i get every year the Pepper steak so tender you could cut it with a butter knife and the most delicious mango sauce comes with it, sounds weird but its not) is way more expensive than what me and Ryan would spend going out to dinner for the both of us. The dessert that I took a picture of is this amazing chocalate truffle cake with a warm pudding inside and this yummy bannana ice cream. I think this meal is also so wonderful because its free. If we went there on our own for a birthday or anniversary or something with every bite I would be thinking this bite cost me $5, so half the fun of this dinner is not only is it absolutely delicious but I can order what I want (and believe me I don't pass up anything, drinks, beginnings ( their fancy word for an appetizer), salad, dessert) and it is free. We eat hardly anything the whole day in preparation for this meal and dinner lasts almost 3 hours. The great thing is the portions are small and they serve each part separatly so your stomach has time to get ready for the next course and you get to try so many different things. Ok, I am done bragging about our wonderful dinner but I had to because it was wonderful.

Washington Trip

all the guys in their blue shirts (un-planned)

ryan helping set up for the reception

the cutting of the cake

all the siblings

us on the ferry ride (above)

at the park

at the park still

we had to put addie by this huge tree, so cute.

hiking with Addie in the stroller at the park

So this is to follow up Annaliese's blog about Richard's wedding with pics. We got a new camera for our anniversary so we took way more pics than we normally would. We did some hiking the first day at Ilahee park. Thursday was Richard's birthday we went with him to go get his tux and shop for a wedding present for his bride to be. (I've never seen Richard's romantic side, I'm still getting used to it) had some Thai food that mom brought home from Seattle and went to the Stake Center to put up decorations for the reception. Afterwards we all went to Shari's (for those who don't live in seattle its like an all night restraunt place like Denny's or Ihop) for dessert to celebrate Richard's 22nd birthday. Friday was the big day. We took the ferry over to the temple, it was a really nice ceremony. Did the picture thing, ate buffet lunch and went straight to the reception. It was nice to see all the family at the reception, wish I could have hung out with my cousins more, I'll have to plan better next time. Thanks to Aunt Beth for letting us stay at her house while she was trying to pack it up. Saturday I went with my sisters to see Twilight ( I thought it was pretty good overall, a few cheesy parts) and Ryan and Orson saw the Bond movie, we helped move the couches into Richard and Becky's new apartment and did some shopping in Silverdale. Sunday we saw Paul and Rachel and the kids before we had to take off to the airport. It was a quick trip, I wish we could have stayed longer for Thanksgiving. Also, I haven't figured out how to post the pictures very well yet so they are all out of order but I can't figure out how to move them now that they are here so sorry.

Our 2nd Anniversary

Well, two years just flew by. It seems weird I have been married that long, it doesn't seem that long ago when I thought I was never going to meet the "one" or get married. Being single was fun and I wouldn't trade those years but it is really nice to be where we are at right now together. Anyways, this year we decided to go to Park City. I had the day off because luckily I work for a bank and we get days off like Veterans day, and Ryan took the day off. So, we drove up to Park City that after noon and walked up and down main streets going into all the little shops and art galleries, man if money wasn't an issue it would be so cool to buy some real art work for our house, then we checked into our hotel right on main street and relaxed for a little bit and got ready to go to dinner. We realized that November is the off season for Park City so it felt like we were the only people there and unfortunately a lot of the restaruaunts were closed. We found a nice Italian place for dinner and it was pretty romantic since we were the only customers in the restaruant literally. After that we we went to the heated outdoor pool at the hotel and hot tub which was fun. When we got back to the hotel Ryan had set up blanket and pillows by the fireplace in our room with the mormon version of champagne "sparkling cider" and roses. So it was a pretty nice anniversary.

Famous people in Lehi?

So we went to Costco on Saturday, mainly because we spent all morning cleaning our house and then didn't feel like cleaning again, so we decided to go eat at Costco and then go shopping and eat all the yummy samples, which as is turned out Annaliese had the exact same idea cause she showed up there like 15 min after us. So anyways after we ate all the samples Annaliese noticed there was a bunch of people outside by the Verizon store with one of the radio stations there so we went over to see what all the fuss was about. We were offered wristbands to stand in the above long line to get an autograph by Timbaland (the guy One Republic sold out to get their Apologize song on the air, you can't really blame them since it worked, but the original version without Timaland(I have no idea how to spell his name)) is so much better, and also Chris Cornell, I guess he was in the Sound Garden band back in the 90's and them two have a new album coming out hence the visit to Lehi, Utah Verizon store with about 50 people. Anyways we took the wristbands stood around waiting for about 20 min realized we didn't really care about getting an autograph although we thought it would have been cool if we felt like standing in line to get a picture with one of them holding Addie and send it to spencer, just to freak him out. We decided against this gave the wristbands back and just watched them get out of their RV and Suburban, of course they couldn't come in the same vehicle, that they had been hanging out in forever, got our cool picture of their backs and decided to go home

Tagged by Kirsten

Tell 6 things no one knows about you, so its probably going to be more like 6 things most people don't know but some people might, but here it goes...
1) I found a snake in my office fax machine, i couldn't get my papers to go thru the machine, so I opened it up and see a black snake all cozied up and screamed so loud my co-workers thought I was getting electrocuted. Everyone in the whole bank knows about it even the CEO and president when they visited our office asked to see the video of it, any ways the point is that before this I was tolerant of snakes but have now moved in to the really hate them and scared of them stage, I've even had a few night mares about them so it doesn't really make sense seeing as how I wasn't physically harmed in any way but thats what happened. Snakes and roaches are the worst luckily I haven't seen a roach since the Texas days.
2) I sucked my thumb until the third grade, I remember my teacher had some kind of code she gave me when she would see me sucking it, I was embarrassed thinking all the other kids knew the code to so I can't remember if that is why I finally stopped the habit but I did, obviously.
3) I have a love/hate relationship with chick flicks, I like to watch them but then I always rip on them afterwards because I think they are always so predictable and unrealistic but I still like watching them.
4)I tried out for the flag team in high school with my two best friends and i was the one who didn't make it. (thats what all the cool, cute girls did was the flags and they got to wear a lot more flattering outfits than the band uniforms, of course anything is more flattering than the band uniforms)
5) I love dairy products, everyone knows that, but i love drinking whip cream from the carton, (not whipped, although I love that too) some people think its gross, like for instance my husband, but its like a little treat to have a little sip everytime you have to get in the fridge for something.
6) I love hair products, I can spend a really long time in the hair section of the store , half the products i buy are for curly hair and the other half for straight hair, always a constant dilemma for me, and then there's the hair dye colors...

Diane and Meredith

Hello Everyone,

Okay, Diane says that she doesn't see the resemblance, but I think she looks a lot like Meredith on Greys Anatomy (it's a tv show). Does anyone concur?

Labor Day

I hope everyone had a good Labor Day weekend and rested from all their labors we certainaly did. We we left thursday night for St. George. Friday we went to the pool and were there for most of the day, I read Breaking Dawn (from the twilight series). Friday night we had a bbq with ryan's family and played some games. Saturday Ryan went golfing with his friends and went to his high school reunion picnic, and I went to work out at the gym and to the pool with Ryan's mom. That night we went to Ryan's high school reunion dinner, ( I've never been or heard about mine and don't plan on going to any) and met all his high school friends so it was interesting to put a face to the stories I've heard. Sunday we went to Ryan's sister's baby blessing and had a picnic in the park. The weather was really nice the whole time we were in St. George, it rained a couple of times for a little bit which cooled things off and only in the evening and morning so it never interfered with my pool plans. I was a little worried about the Hurricane Gustav that gas prices were going to be like $5 a gallon for the drive home, luckily that didn't happen. Monday we went and did some hiking which was fun and got a smoothie at this really yummy smoothie place they have in St. George. We went and ate lunch with Ryan's friends and then went to the Marriot pool where Ryan's younger sister works and had a bbq at the pool. (Yes we ate very well this weekend as you can tell). The weekend went by so fast before I knew it we were driving back, and we started thinking we don't have any more vacations planned to look forward to. We think it might be time to plan a vacation to somewhere besides st.george, like Hawaii sounds nice, or a cruise.

The System Sucks

And here's why.
1) You buy a new car which you pay taxes on when you buy it. Then every year you have to pay the state money (the newer your car the more it is) just to drive it in the state where you live. Can anyone explain why this is? I understand it is good to register the car so that if someone commits a crime you can trace them via license plate (at least that is the only reason I can think of and that is because I read a lot of mystery books). But why every year? Once you register it once shouldn't it cost like $20-30 bucks for the paperwork involved, in my case $187 +$35 for the safety inspection + emmissions test. Now if you have a new car wouldn't it be safe to assume that 2 years later its still in pretty good condition. Also, is it really fair for the state to control wheather or not your car is safe enough to drive? Shouldn't the person driving the car be the one to decide that or suffer the consequences, are they hurting anyone else besides them selves? So, those questions aside, let me tell what happened to me. As you may have guessed the registration on my car expired in July. Now July was a busy month for me, holidays, my birthday, sister having a baby, family in town so believe it or not I do not get around to registering my car. So, come August 2nd, I have my car parked in salt lake city at the mall and come back to find a cop with way too much time on his hands and way too anal has given my a ticket for the sole reason of not having it registerd, 2 little days after the expiration. Ok, fine so the next week I pay all the costs register my car on line print off the temporary permit. The next day after registering my car I have to go to Salt Lake County court house for work and I am planning to then go the other court house to protest the ticket I have received. So, I park my car do what I need to at the courthouse come back to my car and Lo and Behold I have received another ticket for the registration of my car being expired, and this cop is so anal they have also written a note on it that the temporary ticket has to be taped on to the back window of my car in view. So that means the cop has seen the temporary registration permit sitting on the front seat of my car and still feels that it is such a violation to the public of Utah that I have not properly placed my permit on the window of my car. Really, do these people have nothing better to do? Shouldn't they be on the side of the average citizen? I will note that I did take my now two parking tickts over to court house #2 (about 1 block a way) to see what could be done, the second ticket was waived and the first cost me $20 (still a rip off) but the point I am trying make here is the principle of the thing. I mean gas is still over $4 a gallon in Utah, I hear we still have the 4th highest gas prices in the country, I have yet to receive my economic stimulus from the government and the cops are honestly going out of their way to see how much they can nickel and dime you for violations that are unfair in the first place. these are my views if anyone has any differnet opinons I will be happy to hear them but i doubt my views can be changed on this subject:)
Now for #2 (this is my longest blog to date by the way) Insurance I don't believe in it and I think all insurance companies and a lot of doctors/dentists/eye doctors are trying to rip you off as well. So, I have been without contacts for most of this year and have been waiting for my annual eye appt to get a new prescription. So, I go in for my appt, take all the tests, talk to the actual eye doctor for about 10 min he recommends a new kind of contact that you can sleep in and says he'll give me a trial pair. He gives them to me an assistant lady watches me put them in all by my self on the first try and then i walk out to pay what I think is going to be my $25 co pay and am charged an extra $139 for the doctor advising me on these new contacts and the fitting which took all of 1 minute. Don't you think you should be told these things in advance? I was fully prepared to pay for the contact lenses out of pocket since my insurance won't cover it this year of course, but I had no idea I would get charged to have them give me a trial pair and "show" me how to put them in. Well, I could go on and on about this subject but I just don't have enough time right now. So, I will just say this: Everyone (friends & family excluded of course) is trying to rip you off and you have to fight tooth and nail not to get ripped off in this country. Anyone agree or is it just me?

Summer Time

Well, I am sick of looking at our blog post so I thought i'd write a new one. I just want every one to know how much I love the summer time. I love the sun shine, and being able to wear cute summer clothes, not being cold and I love taking a walk in the evening and it being just perfect outside. I admit it makes it hard to be at work during the day especially if the air conditioning is on full blast. I feel like while I live in Utah I should be able to take the summers off to enjoy it more fully, if only I could win the lottery or something. Anyways, we've tried enjoying the summer as much as possible so far, we floated down the provo river one saturday, we have gone to the Lehi Rec center to the pool a couple of times. We are going to Brian Regan in August which is at Thanksgiving point outdoors by the water falls so we are super excited about that and we are also going to see a Midsummer's night dream at the Sundance out door theatre in August. Also, we have gotten good use out of Ryan's new grill. I've gotten to go see Addie, who is now 4 days old and very cute, I am afraid she already favors me as her first aunt to see her:) We went and saw Batman at the Imax theatre yesterday on Pioneer day (Utah State Holiday) with our friends Amber & Christian, very good movie. The only thing I don't like about summer is how fast it goes, I can't believe we only have a month left. I've heard the older you get the faster time goes, and I am scared that is coming true. Well, thats all my thoughts on this subject for today.

California Trip

Well, we went to California the week of Memorial day. First we went to St. George and then Monday we went to Vegas. We went to an outlet mall there and ate at the Cheesecake Factory (Where we always eat when we go to Vegas). Tuesday we headed out to california, after we got there and got checked into our hotel and Ryan and I went to the beach, which unfortunately was pretty chilly, but still fun to hang out at. Wednesday we went to Disneyland and I finally got to see what all the big fuss was about. Thursday we went to Universal Studios which was probably the highlight of our trip, a couple of days later a lot of the stuff we had seen there burnt down, so I am glad we went there. We stayed saturday in St. George to lay out at the pool which was nice and then headed back home (we had fun on our trip, but we also missed our new house) it was nice to get back and sleep in our own bed. In other news, It is finally summer weather here which is awesome! We also met with our bishop in our new ward and got called to be in the primary, he didn't say where- he just said it was going to be in the primary, there's probably a million kids in this new ward so it was a pretty safe bet on our bishop's part that there is some available calling in primary. Annaliese's baby shower that I am throwing is this saturday so hopefully all goes well, I'm hoping as long as we have enough food, things can't go too wrong. Anyways, I think that's all for now.

Phoenix Trip

Hello again,

Just posting a few photos from our trip to Phoenix. It was a quick yet fun trip.

I look really fruity in one of the pictures.

-Ryan

Our House Pics

Hello Everyone

It's been pretty busy lately, but finally has slowed down. I finally ended my 7 year quest to get a bachelors in digital media. -man that felt good to get that out of the way. Diane and I are just working now and things are good. We're heading to Phoenix this weekend to do some work for our jobs, she is training someone for Washington Trust and I am filming stock footage for my work. Diane keeps telling me that she wants to move to Arizona were it's hot, but I don't know if I like being sweaty all day.

Well, we took some pictures of our new place. I think the lens on the camera had a smudge on it because all of them appear to be a little fuzzy on the top left corner, but all well.

Everyone needs to come visit now, since I finally got a grill! We've got plenty of Bratwursts so we need to grill it up.

-Ryan

New address

Well, For those of you who care, our new address is 589 East 1590 South, Lehi, UT 84043. We finally moved in, we have been there for almost a week, The first night was really weird to be finally there, unfortunately we have tons more to do before it really feels like home. They are not changing out our countertops until next saturday so we can't really unpack our bathroom stuff or kitchen stuff so that is frustrating. We are still working on getting a fridge and blinds/curtain for all the windows, get cable and internet, but i'm really happy we are finally in there. Then maybe I can finally start writing about something other than our house, maybe not, I don't know. Anyways, that is our housing update for the week. Ryan is finishing up school he graduates next Friday, April 25th which is also his birthday. Anyways, as soon as he finishes school we will have more time to decorate our house and get our life back to a more normal relaxing pace. Well, soon as we have internet at our house I will be able to keep up on my blogging better.

House Again

Well, just to update everyone, our loan was approved last week so we get to close a lot earlier than we thought we would. We were hoping to close tomorrow so our loan would fund on Friday and we could move in over the weekend but such as life is that plan is not to be. We can't close until Friday now so our loan won't fund until Monday so after work on Monday and Tuesday will probably be our moving times. Anyways, it is starting to seem more like a reality now so we're really excited, we have started packing up our condo so it is a total wreck right now.

Ryan got another new job, hopefully that will be the last time I say that for a while) this one he is really excited about, it is at a place called CMG (creative media group) and he will be doing video editing on a new project for the company, and be making more money. Anyways, I hadn't written a blog in a while so I just wanted to write a quick one, next time I will post pictures of our new house :)

Housing

As most everyone who reads our blog will probably already know we have decided to take part in the wonderful world of home ownship. We made an offer on a townhouse in lehi that we really like and after a few back and forth counter offers and such it was accepted. Now we have to make sure we can get the financing for this lovely purchase and move in (probably not till end of April). I am constantly back and forth in my mind being scared about this huge new commitment and also excited. This means of course that we are commiting our selves to live in Utah for the next few years but have decided this is ok. Ryan would actually be happy living in Utah for the remainder of his days but I have other ideas that are warmer such as Las Vegas (suburbs) and Arizona, and I feel that my constant complaining of the coldness over the next few years will wear him down enough to want to move :) Now that our house hunt is over we will have to find a new hobby for Saturdays and change our internet surfing sites. Also, our goal is to sign up for internet at our new house and also Tivo (which we feel like will make our lives much better.) Well that is all for now.

I don't know

I don't have anything in particular to write about, i just wanted to feel what it was like to write a blog, (since Ryan wrote the first one). Well, I woke up today with the sun shining and started thinking hey, maybe the worst of the winter is over and we will have an early spring. No, not the case it is snowing again as I speak. We did get to go St. George this weekend and got a little taste of sun and short sleeve weather, I am not sure if it helps or hurts my morale when I come back to winter. Anyways, I don't think I have anything else to say right now, nothing witty or clever comes to mind like everyone else's blogs are, and I have got to do some work before I leave.

We are in!

Well, we have finally stepped into the mysterious world of blogging. We decided to retire our old ways of using the pen and paper and go with this great new technology called a "keyboard" and "mouse". Hopefully, we will have things worthwhile to write about, otherwise I will just write silly nonsense.

 

To update everyone on our status:

I am on a winning streak in Wii Tennis against Diane

Thats about if for now.

-Ryan