salt lake

our annual christmas trip to salt lake finally arrived. we started the day by attending the christmas carol at the hale center theater. such a good way to get into the christmas spirit. the ghost of marley was pretty terrifying so it was a good thing we didn't have any children with us. i'm sure one of them would have peed her pants.

back at the hotel we ate until our bellies were full then bundled up to see the lights at temple square.
we spent the rest of the night swimming. the pool at the hotel was not you're typical hotel pool. they had a water slide and water playground. everyone had a blast on the slide, doing tricks and flips. i decided to be on the safe side and just watched. sadly, my mom has all the pictures from the pool. :(

of course, no christmas is complete without our traditional pj's. we all got paul frank jammies... which i love.

happy, happy christmas!!!

chirstmas break has arrived!

school is out!!! school is out!!!! school is out!!!!!

well for two weeks at least. and brandon is done with finals! it's been a crazy-busy month. now it's time to play and really enjoy the christmas season! merry christmas!

trick-or-treat

halloween has come again! friday was a crazy day at school... as usual. but we had lots of fun and the students loved our costumes. that night my family celebrated my dad's birthday with our annual costume party.

{happy birthday papa}

we feasted on swamp monsters, fish egg swamp juice, and mummy dogs.

and of course, it's not halloween without pumpkin carving.

{happy halloween}

what a week

-out with the "old" patio.... in with the new
-practice wedding cake..... we decided to have a little fun with it.
-the real thing (my first and last)

-little wedding dj-ing...

-this was delivered friday morning...
-and now we have a yard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-plus, 3 major school projects for brandon that were all due this week. to say the least, we had several late nights and feel like we need a vacation.

-and last, but certainly not least, we found out that we will be welcoming a baby girl.

feels like fall

so i have not had anything to post about for quite a while. mostly because i've had absolutely no energy to do anything but lay on the couch. gratefully, my energy is slowly returning and i'm feeling like myself again... so hopefully there will be more things to post.

the other night, brandon and i borrowed my sister's kids and visited a little pumpkin patch at the end of our street. not only were we able to pick our own pumpkins out of the field, we were also able to play in a giant corn-box, get "lost" in a hay maze, and spend some quality time with a wallaby, a llama, some pygmy goats, sheep, and donkeys.it was fun to get out of the house and enjoy some fall festivities. our front porch now looks a bit more festive, although it's nothing compared to our neighbor's porch. i think we'll always be a step behind. ;)

first comes love...

then comes marriage...

then comes...

you can probably finish the rest yourself.

the big day is

in march!

--POST UPDATE!!!--

Due to the pinkish nature of the carriage color, some may assume that the baby may definitely be a girl. So in the effort to avoid confusion and just representation, the following must be added to this post.
-B-don

happy, happy birthday!

although brandon had to work on his birthday this year, :( we still had a pretty good day. saturday night we went to my dad's school and watched avatar in his "theater" room, ate pizza, popcorn, and JCW's shakes. then on sunday, i made my very first strawberry pie topped with some sweet sparkler candles.

happy birthday b-don!!!

june 24

~what a good day~

weeds

in the last few weeks our yard has really gotten out of hand. i'm talking 3 ft monster thistles and a variety of waist high weeds. we were looking a little white trash, to say the least.

we went from in-over-our-heads....

to light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel...

to a huge-sigh-of-relief.

i know, i know... we never should have let the weeds get out of control in the first place. we could have spent the day putting in a sprinkler system instead of plowing weeds and getting our yard to the point it was when we first moved in. moral of the story... don't let weeds overtake your life. it'd make a great church talk if anyone wants to borrow it. ;)

hopefully we've learned our lesson and can keep the weeds down until we put in sprinklers and grass.

thanks family for sacrificing a fun day of hiking for a hard day of work. b-don and i never could have done it by a our little 'ole selves.

appreciated

last week was teacher appreciation. i've heard rumors about the gifts some teachers get during this week... gift cards to their favorite clothing stores, certificates to restaurants, expensive soaps and lotions. i wouldn't know. teaching at a low-income school does not produce such gifts. we get something even better.


such as bars of soap....

and dirty, hair-covered, stuffed animals...

i can just see "J" remembering it's teacher appreciation week and searching his house for a proper gift. {he gave me a dirty stuffed zebra for christmas.} i would love to know his thoughts when he saw that bar of irish spring and knew it was the right gift for me. maybe that "shower everyday with soap" lesson actually stuck with him. {at least something did}

and poor "S". she's as dirty as the scorpion she gave me. maybe smellier though. this year she has pushed my already low patience to the brinks of losing all control. {i've had to take lots of deep breaths} but she gave me her scorpion. even if it was covered in pet hair... she was thinking of her teacher and that was nice. it made me want to be a little kinder and a lot more patient with her.

sisters trip

this week millie, abbie, and i drove down to arizona to visit our sister annie and her family.

it was so nice to get away and relax.

we celebrated easter together by watching conference, eating lots of food, hunting for eggs, and soaking up a little sun.

{highlights}

sun, sun, sun
coloring eggs
dinner with millie's sister-in-law's family
almost killing their hammie
annie's ultrasound.... girl... yes, another one
duck pond
hiking... it's getting hot in here...
dinner & movie with guillena's
peanut butter m&ms
freddy's
would you rather.... (such an entertaining game)
speeding tickets.... 2 of them
spending time with the girls i love... big and little

thank you abbie and millie for coming and making the trip entertaining. thank you ellery and aayla for being SO good in the car. thank you annie for letting us visit. i miss you guys.

just call me fred.

i feel like i've been cursed. cursed with a love of ShOEs. tall shoes, with a skinny toe. the love of shoes is not so much a curse as is the shape of my feet. they don't fit into 90% of the shoes i love so much. whoever designed these beautiful shoes did not design them for my feet. if you have seen my feet, you understand... if not, well, imagine fred flintstone... visualize his club feet. then attach those to my ankles and you've got my feet.

the other day i went shoe shopping. i started upbeat and excited, ready to find a fabulous new pair of pumps. i tried on pair after pair. each pair deflated my excitement until i was left completely frustrated and defeated.

i decided i should shop online. surely someone has a line of wide-width shoes for club-footed-girls like me. what i found depressed me even more.




i am cursed to have bunions or g-ma shoes.

it's back baby

when i told people i was going to put WALLPAPER up in our new house i got a variety of responses.

couple of excited comments about how cute it would look. a few even mentioned they'd love to do the same.

more often then not, my idea was met with a face of shock, confusion, doubt, and even a hint of disgust. these initial faces were masked with an "oh... uh, cool"... sometimes a "really??? wow you're braver than i am." or... "neat. my mom has wallpaper" even... "eww! why?" i would just chuckle inside when i was met with these responses. then i kindly informed them...

wallpaper has official made a comeback, and i have welcomed it with open arms.


p.s.
do not fret. it's not plastered on every surface, just one accent wall.

iron chef -- oranges!

for those of you who know my father, you know that he loves his tv entertainment. specifically, iron chef. when we eat at nice restaurants he pretends he is a judge and critiques the food with the same confidence the true judges possess. for quite some time he's been talking about having our own family iron chef competition. well, it finally happened. this year for my mom's birthday, my dad surprised us with white envelopes holding a secret ingredient and the rules and regulations to iron chef - roper style.

jacob and brandon were the chefs and the rest of us drew teams...
team 1: jacob (bro-in-law), millie (sister), and myself
team 2: brandon, abbie (sister), and danica (abbie's friend)

the secret ingredient, oranges! each team had $100 and 1 1/2 hours to shop, plan, and create three courses and a drink.

the competition was fierce and stressful. my team had several mishaps and i worried that we would have NOTHING to serve the judges (my parents). brandon's team was calm and collected (shocking, i know). they finish with plenty of time to spare, which they used to laugh at jacob, millie, and myself running around like wild cats, yelling orders back and forth, and cursing under our breath. (ok, that last part might just have been me.) it came down to the last second of the competition, but we were able to finish our dishes. i must say, i was very impressed with the end results. not only did we have all our dishes, but they tasted pretty amazing.

TEAM JACOB MENU: (and yes, we came up with the names ourselves)
drink: orange strawberry sunrise smoothie
appetizer: chipotle orange shrimp kabobs with a fresh spring mix salad and orange vinaigrette dressing
entree: top sirloin medallion with zesty orange sauce topped with grilled asparagus
dessert: orange cream tart

TEAM BRANDON MENU:
drink: orange-lemonade
appetizer: fruit salad with an orange yogurt glaze
entree: shrimp with an orange tomato and thyme sauce
dessert: orange dream smoothie

in the end, the title of iron chef went to the most deserving team.... my team.
unfortunately, winner or loser, we still had this waiting for us in the end.

vacuum bags are a must

so i was vacuuming... and the vacuum just wasn't acting quite right. i thought "hmm, maybe the bag is full. i'd better change it." so i removed the cover and was met with a puff of dust and fuzz. after the dust settled this is what i saw.


not only was it full, but there was NO BAG to begin with! awesome. and as you can see we've been using our vacuum quite a bit since moving in.

v-day

the best thing about working at an elementary school on valentine's day is that i still get an overflowing box of valentines, which i happily sort through when i get home.


did i mention i also get monsterous hershey's kisses the size of my fist? now what to do with the mammoth chunks of chocolate... they'd probably make great paper weights.

it's finished!

we are all moved in! (well mostly) thanks to lots of help from family and friends, we were able to get all of our belongings out of our storage unit and my parents basement, and into our new house. we are so thankful to everyone for their help!

we can't believe how smooth the whole process has gone. (besides being idiots by locking ourselves out and having to call a locksmith to come and drill a hole through out doorknob- other than that...)

the hole

framing

sheetrock


the finished product
master bedroom
kitchen
loft
2nd & 3rd bedrooms and laundry
home sweet home

we still have a lot of work to do. i.e. unpacking, organizing, painting, decorating, shelving, etc. but for now we are thrilled to own a real grown-up house.