My First Apron

OK SO I SHOULD TOTALLY BE GETTING US READY FOR OUR CRUISE and doing laundry and packing since this week is going to be crazy and we are leaving on WEDNESDAY!!!...But I decided to make an apron instead. Ha! So ever since my mom came to stay wtih us for a few days a few weeks ago and we sewed like crazy I have been obsessed with looking for easy patterns to sew. So yesterday I was online and I found tihs really cute and super easy looking apron pattern. I had some fabric from another project I was working on and I decided that "Hey I could make that." So I started wipping it out at about 11:30 last night and got up this morning and finished it about 10am. It is by no means perfect but I am still learning, so it's fun. Now I just need to figure out how to cook!!

Dance For Darfur

If you live in Utah please visit the link below and help support our brother in law and this great cause!

Dance for Darfur

Just Another Day of Fishing

I was able to take the day off on Friday to go fishing with my dad and brother in law. We woke up to a cold, drizzly, rainy day and I was afraid we wouldn't be able to go. When we got to the base of the canyon it was so foggy we almost turned around. We took off hiking and and no sooner had we begun climbing the trail up the canyon when we hiked up above the clouds where it was sunny and warm. We had a great time enjoying the beautiful canyon, good fishing and good company. Here are some pictures from our favorite spot:

Thanks for a great day!

Happy Birthday Tawna!

Happy Birthday Tawna! I hope you have a great birthday and you get all that you wish for! I decided to post some pictures of us, some are from a long time ago and some a little more recent. We were so nerdy in some of these! I miss you!!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my Dad's birthday! We hope you have a fantastic birthday! Wish we were there to celebrate! We love you and miss you tons!

Caramel Apple Sugar Babies

All I have to say is these are the best things in the entire world. I stinkin' love sweets (obviously, see chubby pictures below) and these are by far one of my favorite things right now. Unfortunately the only place I have ever found them is at the restaurant Cracker Barrel so if you don't have one of those well...maybe you will have to find a store that sells them because they are DELISH! Love love love... If you like those caramel apple sucker things, these are so much better than those! I have always been a sucker for caramel apples. I almost always have to get one whenever we go to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, they even cut them for you. Awesome. Anyway I just thought I would share in case you were looking for a good midnight snack or any time of the day snack, I think I'll go eat some right now...

Happy Birthday Scoty

Happy Birthday to my wonderful and amazing husband! I love you and I hope you have a happy birthday! I couldn't have asked for a more perfect person to spend all of eternity with than you. Love you, love you, love you and Happy Birthday ya old guy!!! Ha ha ha!!

The Story of Us

For Lack of something to blog about I thought I would post some pictures from long ago when we were younger and better looking and I can tell you a little about who we are and our story...Here we go...

Scot and I met during the Fall semester of 2002. Our first date was to the Haunted Mill. For those of you who didn't go to School at BYU-Idaho this is a scary old abandoned mill where they set up a haunted house each October and I am not kidding you, it is FREAKY. I actually hate the place. It gives me indegestion. Anyway we hit it off and hung out quite a bit after this. Things were pretty slow going from there on however. I was beginning to think that I always had a booger hanging out of my nose or I had a major case of halitosis becaue the boy would not kiss me. The months went by but finally on Valentines Day of 2003 it happened. Oh the bliss. This roommate right here waited it out with me and you should have heard the celebrating when I came home that night...what a great friend!

Well after that things went along quite nicely...but slow of course. He came home with me for Spring Break. Here we are at my parentals house...(Don't we look so happy and in love?...ahhh) We went to San Francisco and Downtown Sac and the Calaveras Big Trees... Fun stuff
We did other fun stuff in Rexburg too, like go to the Civil Defense Caves...

Then the semester ended and I was going home to California and he was going home to Colorado to work...we were very sad. I cried the whole way home...
So we went our seperate ways for the summer and to be honest lost touch a little bit. Then it was time to go back to school. Horray! So we met back up and we dated some more while I was living at La Jolla and he was living at Breckenridge. We hung out pretty much every day even after we broke up a couple of times. We would break up one day and then be hanging out the next. Healthy right, we were young and dumb I guess? We couldn't stand to be apart, what can I say?

We did some more fun stuff like canoing on the Snake River...

Went to Birthday Parties at MY favorite restaurant in Idaho Falls called...GARCIAS...

Made HORRIBLY disgusting dinners for each other. Ok ok it was only me that made gross dinners...listen to me talking like it's past tense...MAKE gross dinners...Even though this isn't a very good picture, this picture is a momento from one of the most embarassing nights ever. If it happened now I would probably laugh but at the time I was MORTIFIED. It was the night before I was to fly home for our two week long Christmas break so Scot and I were having date night of course and I offered to make him dinner before we went to Idaho Falls to go to a movie. I was all excited to make him dinner so I called my mom and asked her for her Chicken and Rice recipe. It sounded easy enough so I made it, it looked fine and I was pretty much proud of myself. Well Scot gets to my apartment and we sit down to eat and not one but two of us had a hair in our food. MY HAIR because I was trying to get ready for the evening while cooking at the same time. Not a good idea. I wanted to die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How gross is that??? So if that wasn't bad enough the chicken wasn't cooked and the rice was still crunch. Who screws up Minute Rice? I had also made an apple crisp for desert but the top wasn't very brown so my roommate said oh just set the oven on broil for a couple minutes and it will be good. So I do that and it is BLACK burnt crispy when I pull it out of the oven. At that point, I had pretty much had it. We took our picture and left. Then I found out that Scot doesn't like broccoli and that chicken mess I made had broccoli crawling in it. It's a wonder he still married me. Ha!

So we got back from Christmas break, had a small lapse in judgment where we decided to go our seperate ways for good, we hadn't spoken for two weeks. Well to this day I believe that Heavenly Father had a plan for us because one weekend I decided I needed to get away so I went to Provo to visit some friends that were going to BYU and I kept getting phone calls from a number I didn't recognize so I just didn't pick it up. It happened all weekend. Well on Sunday afternoon I decided I wanted to go home even though it was a three day weekend and we had planned to stay through Monday. I just needed to go home for some reason. So I went home on Sunday afternoon and when I got home my roommates told me that Scot had called. I didn't believe them, I thought they were just joking around but when I realized they were serious I was like "WHERE'S THE PHONE???" So I called him and he told me that he had broken his back while Skiing that Friday. I was completely in shock. So I rushed over to his apartment and we were inseperable once again from that day on. I drove him to class, took him to the store, ran errands for him. Then he recovered and we did more fun stuff like...

Go to Cabaret...

And this pretty little place in Provo...

We spent the summer together in Rexburg. We did stuff like go to Rigby Lake and go on little hikes. Scot came with me to my family reunion in Island Park...

We went back to my house again and went to Six Flags and Downtown Sac and all that good stuff...

He was the pretend stripper at my friend Lisa's bachelorette party...Oh Baby...this is was when I knew I was in love. Mwah. So the story goes that he put on every piece of clothing he owned and after what seemed like 20 minutes of "stripping" he still had plenty of clothes on...

Then I went to his family reunion in Estes Park, CO...
We went to Moose Hockey Games in Jackson Hole. Our Favorite!
Then we went to this awesomely awesome Napoleon Dynamite Festival in Preston, ID. This is Uncle Rico's Van...

In November Scot came home with me for Thanksgiving and he asked my dad if he could marry me. Keep in mind at this point we've been dating for 2 years and 1 month. My dad's response was "it's kind of sudden isn't it?" What a funny guy...

We went on our last trip to Green Canyon Hot Spring...Good Times

Then Scot graduated...are you getting bored yet?

That was pretty much the saddest day of my life. I was left alone not only by my boyfriend but also by my bestest friend and roommate. How lonely was I?? So I filled my time with sewing, watching T.V., scrapbooking, hanging out with friends and going to school. In February I went to Salt Lake to see Scot because he was there for a family event. He told me to bring a nice dress to wear to our reservation at "The Roof" (this is the restaurant on top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building). So I did. We had a fantastic dinner and after dinner we walked over to the lookout windows that look over Downtown Salt Lake and Scot proposed. I said yes of course, grabbed the ring and we went on a little carriage ride through downtown. Cute!!! (This actually wasn't the original plan for our proposal because his original plan was aborted due to fog in Salt Lake but it still turned out perfectly! I will just say this, we were supposed to already be engaged when we went to dinner at The Roof)

I know what you are all thinking...FINALLY...Well you should have been me... This whole process took 2 1/2 years!!!! I should get a big gold star for patience!

We were married on May 14, 2005 and it was the best decision I ever made! We just celebrated our 3rd anniversary and I hope to celebrate MANY MANY more!!

Love you Scot...Even though you're slow...it was worth it!!

Living the LIfe You Dream

Yesterday I had to go to Denver for a seminar for work and one of the classes I took was called Escape from Mediocrity: Living the Life You Dream. We all have this ideal and picturesque life that we dream of when we're daydreaming at work or just before dozing off after a long day where if money were no object, no one depended on us and we had no obligations we could make this dream a reality. Luckily money is an object, people do depend on us and we do have obligations becuase these are the things make us who we are and remind us that people love us. However this short 60 minute class taught me that our ideas and passions can become more than just a dream. We can take small steps each day toward making our dreams a reality. She talked about living your life to the fullest and making changes so that you are happier. I got more out of this class than any other classes I took on I-9's and customer service or employee benefits. This class was about us and realizing that we have a life and we have dreams beyond the four walls of our offices, that we need to take those dreams seriously and make them happen, we need to do what we are passionate about. Now I know that I will probably never have my dream of owning my own scrapbook store where all I have to do is pick out the inventory I want in the store and have employees to do all the hard stuff for me but I could make small steps towards taking more time each day to enjoy my hobby. I often get so caught up in the every day hustle and bustle that I don't take the time to enjoy this part of my life and maybe if I did I could relieve some of the anxiety and stress of the day and become a more well rounded person and who knows maybe start off selling some stuff online!

I have a wonderful life right now with an amazing husband who I love very much and I can't imagine my life without, wonderful family members, a beautful house, friends, I am EXTREMELY lucky and I know that but as most of you know, I do have a less than perfect job that doesn't always bring out the best in me so I love it when something really gets me excited about making changes and doing something to change it up a bit and make me see that it's up to me to do something about it!

At the end of the class she showed us this video about a regular guy named Paul Potts who followed his dreams, who didn't have a lot of confidence but took a chance on something he loves and that he is passionate about. Hopefully this will inspire you like it did me to live your life to the fullest and always follow your dreams!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA

And a Big Happy Birthday to My Jenny.

I just want to tell my wife Jenny how much I love her, and to wish her a Happy Birthday.

She is my Best Friend and I am so lucky to have her in my life.

Happy Birthday Jenny!!!!!!!