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.