Holiday Tag...Thanks Amy!

I just got so excited!! I’ve never been tagged before…ever! I’ve always wondered what it was like to do a tag.

Top 3 Vacations
1. Cancun – I assume…I’m going in 6 weeks so I will later confirm.
2. Georgia – since that is where my fabulous family resides.
3. Not a huge traveler so I’ll stick with the two for now!

Top 3 Favorite Flowers
1. Daisies – My wedding flower.
2. Lily's – Another wedding flower.
3. Birds of Paradise – Also part of my wedding.

Top 3 favorite comfort foods – I would like to preface this with it’s really rude to make someone pick their top 3 favorite comfort foods…
1. My mom’s fried chicken and fried potatoes.
2. My mom’s meatloaf – I’m not just making that up either.
3. My mom’s enchiladas.
4. My mother-in-law’s chicken with lemon chive sauce.
5. Bagel sandwiches.
6. Plain bagel extra toasted with garlic schmear.
7. Pickled cherry peppers.
8. My mom’s fried pork chops.
9. Lot’s of other food I’m sure my mom would fry for me
~This my friends is why I had to quit my skinny jeans!

Top 3 Places to Shop
1. Nordstrom – mostly for the Mac makeup…ADDICTION!
2. Gap
3. Yep, no more of a shopper than I am a traveler. We’ll call it good at two.

Top 3 Opinions About Halloween – I will try to keep the Halloween Grinch to a minimum.
1. Carving pumpkins is lame!
2. I don’t even get candy because I don’t have kids and the candy I do buy the kids come to my door and steal. AND when they come to the door I feel all awkward and wonder what I’m suppose to say. Ugh…I’m working on it I swear.
3. I do love to decorate my house for Halloween. I just don’t love the un-decorating. Hey, for the most part that was a non Halloween Grinch thing to say. I think I’ve made progress.

Top 3 Opinions About Thanksgiving
1. It helps me remember everything I am thankful for and reminds me to count my blessings.
2. It’s a day I usually get to spend with family and for that I am lucky.
3. I wish I could take naps because it does get a little lonely after dinner. Everyone wants to take a nap yet none of the men let me change the channel from football because they claim they are “just resting their eyes”. Whatever, I swear I will get a hold of the remote this year.

Top 3 Opinions About Christmas
1. It is seriously the most amazing time of year. The spirit in the air is fabulous!
2. I love Christmas music and started listening to it on Saturday right after I was sure Halloween was over. I would transfer straight to Thanksgiving or Kwanza music but most the songs I know that go with those Holidays are from Adam Sandler and aren’t always appropriate.
3. Snow makes me happy and especially on Christmas day!

Top 3 things I look forward to during the week
I have a pretty uneventful life as it stands right now. Work, school, school, I guess there is some work in there…and then there is school. Oh I do get to see Zach some. Wait, do I? Yeah, I think so. Okay so I look forward to seeing Zach.

Top 3 Events Happening This Week
1. My month end late night – probably coming Wednesday!2. I get to see Aida on Friday with my mother-in-law and cousin-in-law and I’m soooo excited. It’s tied for my favorite musical next to Mama Mia!
3. Stefanie’s house warming party – go us..it’s her birthday…Oh, well her house warming party I mean.

Now I am going to tag......Marcy Cheney, Stefanie Eberhard, Audrey Cheney, & Andrea Gray!

I am not a quitter...Well, I wasn't!

I want to make it clear that I am not a quitter. I’m not, I swear. Ever since 7th grade when I quit the swim team and shortly thereafter tried to quit the track team and my dad made it clear to me that quitting is not the answer I have not been a quitter. I do not intend to start now. There is the time that I quit the diet…and the gym…and the skinny jeans but those were just unreasonable requests and I do not feel that these quits count! I have been begging Zach forever now to carve pumpkins with me for Halloween. I think every year since we met. Then time passes and no pumpkins get carved. This year I bought the pumpkins and the carving kit and we were on our way. I was soooo excited. I cannot even begin to share my excitement. We picked our stencils and we were off. Um, well Zach was off. I did my first cut into the eyebrow – ugh, I was seriously so annoyed. I could not believe how boring this was. I cringe at the thought. In fact after this post I do not intend on ever discussing or participating in pumpkin carving again. I’m not kidding, try me. After my quick moment of despair happiness sunk in. I knew that Zach was dreading the night the entire day so I was sooooo excited to give him an easy out. After just seconds from the start I told him that I was bored and he was lucky because I wasn’t going to force him to carve pumpkins with me. Wow, a man I thought I knew so well blindsided me unexpectedly. I got the same speech from him that I got from my dad in 7th grade. “You need to finish what you start, blah blah blah.” Luckily I hadn’t carved my pumpkin an ear yet so I had someone…something to tune out the lame speech with me! I quit. He couldn’t make me carve that most retarded pumpkin. I have a life you know. After much guilt tripping I finally gave in and carved the stupid pumpkin. Oh I don’t know if anyone has ever mentioned this before but I’m incredibly stubborn. I was not about to carve the stupid stencil. That would take way too much time and precision. Instead I turned the lame pumpkin around and carved my own little 30 second face. I just finished my art class this summer I was at least cut out to free carve. And I did..I think I clocked me at just under 30 seconds. AND 30 minutes later Zach was finished with his. I must say he did an excellent job for someone who was dreading pumpkin carving. After all was said and done he said he would do it again next year. If anything good came from pumpkin carving it was just another agreement on how to raise our kids. We agreed that I’ll take them to theme parks and he can carve ridiculous pumpkins. I will never carve another pumpkin. Maybe I’ll paint one next time!

Here is the stupid stencil of what my pumpkin was supposed to look like.

This is me making an extremely good judgment call and overrulling my stencil.

Zach's perfect artwork...he really surprised me. I'm a proud wife.

Our perfect match!!

Welcome to Texas

I had to go to Houston, Texas a couple weeks go for a business trip. I was so excited because of course my other favorite people live there. I cannot tell you how long it’s been since I have seen my cousin Audrey. Actually I can, it was the Cheney reunion the summer of 07. So there you have it, it’s been too long. Audrey and I always got a long so good. When I spent the summers at my dads Audrey and I were stuck at the hip. She was the trouble maker and I was the peace maker. Wait, is that how it went? Audrey made the drive and picked me up from the airport when I arrived on Wednesday. We went back to her seriously darling house and before we did anything I took out my detective notebook (you know, the little handheld notebooks that fit within pocket protectors) and took notes on all her decorating ideas. Before you know it there won’t be a bit of difference between the two houses. Aud - your amaze me with your decorating. I have a feeling Jimmy helped!! Then Audrey made me a gourmet lunch; a hot pocket. Not something I have successfully cooked, therefore it was gourmet. After a while we went to Uncle Tom’s and Aunt Cindy’s. I was sooo excited to see them. I’ve always had a really special relationship with my Uncle Tom and will forever be grateful. It was so nice to visit with them both for such a long time. They called in dinner from this delicious Mexican restaurant. It just so happens that Mexican food is my favorite! They must have known. Before and after dinner I got to play with Audrey’s perfect little children Landon and Emma. We caught two tree frogs and by we I mean Aunt Cindy and Landon. That was right up my alley considering I’m addicted to frogs of all sorts. I had so much fun playing with them and I find myself now missing them. I’m so happy that I got to spend time with this side of my family. Since we moved and they moved shortly after we have had very little time to sit and chat. Thanks Audrey for driving me around the city, thanks Jimmy for giving up the wife for an evening to drive me around the city, and thanks Uncle Tom and Aunt Cindy for having me to your house for dinner. It was the best; you guys are all the best. I love you!!

Um, seriously, how cute is she? I can't even handle it!

Emma

Yep, again...amazing. Audrey, I cannot believe you created her. I guess with Jimmy's help I can believe it. Just kidding, it's no shock to me.

The family, minus Jimmy who is taking the picture. Thanks Jimmy!

My cute neices and Halloween = Disaster!

Around mid October Cori and Brandon invited us to go with them to take Launa and Teiha to a little kids spook alley thing that a woman from Cori’s work put together. I told Cori from the very beginning that it was a bad idea. I have never been around two kids that are so afraid of their own shadows…besides myself at age 5…through 22. Last year we went to dinner with them around Halloween and there was a Frankenstein in the restaurant and they freaked out. Teiha LITERALLY forced herself to fall asleep at the table because she was so scared to have to see him. He was the nicest Frankenstein ever too. So funny. So because of this experience I just knew that Launa and Teiha couldn’t handle a spook alley, even if it was for 2 year olds. Bless their hearts. So we get there are they are doing ok. We get to the front and there is this witch that told the girls that if they are scared they just yell “boo” and the scary people will leave them alone. We walked through the first 5 steps of the spook alley and came to another witch who basically wanted to tell them their future. She asked them to come closer and they started screaming from the top of their lungs…sweet Cori decided that was the funniest thing she has ever witnessed and couldn’t stop laughing, at her own kids. My heart broke and I just started yelling “boo”. We walked the remaining 45 steps saying, “boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo”. I was carrying Teiha because she would not let go of me and I think Zach had Launa…maybe Cori did. Anyway, the poor people working were probably incredibly bored for that 3 ½ minutes. They were forced to completely stop participating for the time being. When we were done we were laughing so hard. We asked Launa and Teiha if they had fun and I think because we were laughing so hard they thought they better say they did. So of course since it was so much fun we asked if they wanted to do it again and they were very quick to yell “no, but we did have fun.” Uh huh, sure ya did! The rest of the night Teiha kept asking if the scary witch was going to be where she could see her. I think for a week straight Teiha inquired about witches and other scary creatures. So sad and sooo funny all at the same time.

This is Teiha as a pretty witch... not sure where her hat landed.

This is Launa as a pretty witch; how cute is her little pose?

Me with both of them. They are seriously perfect!!!

U of U Game!

Oops…I have not posted in a loooong time. My bad. Not that anyone cares! Several weeks ago Zach’s fabulous sister Heidi and brother-in-law Jon along with their son Tyler and Jon's brother Todd so kindly invited us to share in their season tickets to the Utah game. It was a lot of fun. I quite enjoyed myself because Heidi is a people watcher as am I. We did a lot of talking and a little game watching. I learned that they have a lot of yummy treats there and if you go with a 4 year old you actually have better excuses to buy and eat those treats. Did I already mention they were yummy? But did I mention how yummy they were? Once the Utes had a fairly large lead I went with Heidi to take Tyler (our cute nephew) to see the fountain. There was a humungous beast employee …humungous is explaining the extent of her beastliness, not her size…she seriously unnecessarily yelled at Tyler not to put his hands in the water and made the little fella cry. Then there were like 5 other kids being much more dramatic in the fountain than Tyler was. She very much annoyed me, but such is life when you share a world with beasties! So I don’t have great pictures to accompany this post but I’ll share what I have…

Zach and I in our freshly purchased Utes gear!

My cute darling sister-in-law Heidi... I don't know why it looks like John is hiding, he loves getting his picture taken. Must have been a fluke.

Like I said before my brother-in-law loves getting his picture taken but something must have gone wrong with the camera...he'll be happy to see that I at least got a really amazing profile shot of him and really Todd too!

Thanks guys for the invite. We had fun!!!

Advice or suggestions from ANYONE!

I LOVE my house, seriously I do. I unfortunately was cursed with the non ability to have any taste or passion for design. I lie, I think I have the passion I just don’t have the taste. If someone shows me something that is well designed I have the ability to know for myself if I like the look or not. However, I cannot for the life of me come up with my own ideas. SO….I am soooo bored with my house. It’s nice, I believe it’s decorated tastefully, but it’s pretty barren. All I really want to do to change things up a bit is paint a wall or two. I have been thinking for weeks what wall/walls I should paint. Here is my plea to you. Will ANYONE who has good taste please come to my house and give me a few ideas? Do you charge for your service? I’m sure we can work something out!! If you are a blog stalker and you can help, please for the kindness of humanity help. If I don’t know you I only have to quickly complete a background check and then you’re welcome to my house…or not complete a background check, we’ll talk! Not only will I feel as though I accomplished something that many adults can do on their own but it’s a good excuse to do lunch with a friend, or make a new one [:)]! Do I sound pathetic? Good, I am! It should make you want to help me even more. It’s true, I’m begging. I do those kinds of things. Thanks in advance, I’m sure we’ll talk soon…hint, hint!!!

Three-Year Anniversary

Friday was me and Zach’s three year anniversary. I’m not sure if we are still considered “newlyweds” or not. Some say if you are married two years or more you are no longer newlyweds and some say you are if you are married 5 years or less. I’m not sure who write the rules but I’d like to speak to him/her. I’m curious what justifies a newlywed. I say we will always be newlyweds because we will always make sure it feels “new”. Wow, that was just really sweet of me. I knew it was in there. Anyway, we don’t have any tradition per se; we just like to go to a nice restaurant and whatever else. Since I have met Zach I’ve been known to be a story teller. Whatever, fine…some would say it started long before I met Zach. Anyway, he seriously believes anything I say. I would say over the last year he has started calling my bluff but I can get him to recant that pretty quick if I try hard enough. So a couple of days ago I asked Zach if he has done any anniversary shopping lately. He said something like, “why, you think it takes months or something?” I told him that with the budget we set for each other he might of wanted to start early (this is funny because we have never discussed anniversary gifts…we just do whatever). He thought I was being serious, like maybe we really gave each other a budget. I told him that we talked about it a while ago and we agreed to spend at least $300 on each other this year since it’s year three and I think it needs to be special. He believes me…does he seriously think that I really want $600 spent for our anniversary? I felt really bad because his face was something of shock and disbelief. I’m usually begging him not to get me anything because I honestly don’t understand the point behind it. Well anyway, I told him I was kidding because I was feeling bad. He did give me some fabulous roses and we went to dinner at Spencer Steak & Chops or something. It was so tasty!