Countdown...

Ho-ly cow! I can't believe it's been a whole MONTH since my last post! That's not like me, that kinda stretch is for people who don't have any time to post anything! Oh wait... that IS me! No time at home, no time on the weekends, and especially not even a second at work. Yeah, life is so busy right now! No time to breathe, which is PERFECT timing for a little vacation! No, not just a little vacation, THE vacation! Sad, isn't it, that we have no kids yet the last time we went on a real getaway (camping not included) was January 2008! Our last cruise. Yeah, I'm not even kidding. So... (dramatic pause for effect)... we're going on another cruise! Yeppers, we leave Friday for Florida and our cruise departs on Wednesday (we learned from our last experience that it's worth going a day early)! Wait, Wednesday? Wow, I'm mixing up the days, that's bad. (I would have totally just gone back and fixed my mistake, but before I stopped to read it, I eas too lazy to fix it, so I just explained. Does that make since to you? Me neither...) We actually leave Saturday, make more since? Okay. This go around, we're headed to the Western Caribbean :) Mexico, here we come! And now I have a trusty interpretur to get me the best shopping deals. Wahoo! Since life is so crazy, I'm devoting today to be my day to actually think about the cruise and take time to get EXCITED about it! And you get to come along for the ride! Here's some pics from the last one. This time around, we're both a little more pale and a little heavier :)
Here's Pete in front of the ship, at St. Maarten, if I remember. Yeah, he looks tan because he was :) Last time, he took the time to go tanning before. This time? Not so much. Hope he doesn't get too burnt!

Here we are, after "formal dinner night" at the club, waiting for the hypnotist show. It was so funny! We were going to pee our pants, we were laughing so hard! See that drink? Yeah, you pay $20 bucks, I think, at the beginning your cruise and you get unlimited soda and drinks. And they'll bring it right to you whenever you want! They just come up and ask what you want, so you don't even have to walk to the drink bar to ask for a drink! Luxury....

And Magens Bay. So pretty, stressful for a bit, but so pretty. I hate that this picture has a pink blob in it, cause I really like it a lot. Oh, and the camel backs were a lifesaver! They'll be coming with us this time around as well.

Thanks for reminesing(?) with me! I'll tell you how this one goes when we get back!

Scipio Rodeo 2009

It was time for the Scipio Rodeo...again...so fast. Not that I hate it, I actually like searching for treasures at the antique store, watching the rodeo, and going up to the Grove in the mountains. The part I don't like is tall, leather boots, long jeans, and 98 degree weather! Hot hot hot! Plus Adam always asks that I wear my hair down...ha! But I always do, because you can't say no when your husband occasionally requests for you to get dolled up. He deals with enough ponytails every day. This year was much the same, with a few changes. Kevin came with us, so I sat in the back seat on the drive to and from Scipio. Not bad, considering that Kev got to keep Pete awake and I got to take a nap on the way home (and on the way there... :) ). We stopped at Chadder's on the way down (it's tradition now!) and got squeeky cheese at the gas station in Scipio (there are three now in Scipio! Can you believe it? Scipio's stepping up in the world!). Then we went for our usual stop at the antique store, and left empty handed! Of course, now that I have a house to put cool antiques in, I can't find a thing! Then off to the Grove we went, breaking out in a sweat in the 30 seconds between the car and stores. Luckily, it was nice and cool up there, so we stayed and the boys fished (I decided to dip my hot feet in the stream instead of fishing. Man it was cold!).

Here's Pete on the left and Kevin on the right. I'm sitting on this cute little bridge, dipping my feet. They searched the stream to find some fish and found around ten in this little spot! It's true, I saw them. The guys got so frustrated because the fish were two feet from them and weren't biting their worms!

So Pete gave up the fishing pole and attempted to catch one with his hands! He tried for 30 minutes, getting "so close!" a few times. He walked down stream to try a different spot, and just a few minutes later caught one! I had my camera ready, but he started running so fast over, the camera couldn't refocus on him in time. He was so proud of himself! I married myself a manly man!

And here we are just getting to the rodeo. I always make Adam take a picture together at the beginning, so I'm guaranteed a pic with some natural light. I love this picture. I haven't been able to take a good picture in 18 months, I always look sick or retarded! So this one is going up, somewhere, just to prove after almost two years of marriage, I can still look good!

Hope everyone had a good Pioneer's Day weekend, even if you're not in Utah!

Just another reason I love my husband...

BEFORE:



DURING:

5 MINTUES AND 5 DOLLARS AND NO COMPLAINTS LATER:

Need I say more?

The House: a blank canvas

After many requests for pictures of our new house, I finally put them on here. And this is my last post for a while, I promise! I hate playing catch-up. And I'll make this quick.

This is what we like to call the Sunshine Room. It's one of the extra rooms upstairs, complete with blue skies, thin clouds, and lots of sun! Adam said if we act sad or onery, we have to sit in the sunshine room until we can be happy :)

This next one is our master bedroom. It doesn't look that big anymore with our bed in it!

Here's the master bath. I know it's not huge, but this picture makes it look smaller then it is, and it fits our needs just dandy. Oh, and the shower is really deep so you can take awesome baths.


Here's the front room, or Home Teacher Room, as we like to call it. This is what it's going to look like for a while, cause we have no furniture for it, unless we put the orange couch in there :)

This is the kitchen, obviously, looking towards the front door. Alder cabinets, yay! and tile floors, double yay! All I need is granite countertops and I'll start to cry :) All of the cabinets are full. How all of our stuff fit in our tiny apartment kitchen before, I'll never know.

Here's the basement bathroom. Looks like they were trying to make the partial basement into a master suite, but that just doesn't work for us. Sink on the right, furnace and water heater behind the door, and walk-in shower on the right. Oh yeah :)
Here's the jacuzzi on the other side of the walk-in shower. I took a bath the other night just to try it out and relax, and it was way nice, except I have issues with just sitting in the tub naked. Would rather wear my swim suit and sit in the hot tub :)

Here's the family room looking down from the kitchen. Just big enough but not so large I don't know what to do with it.

The other room upstairs is a little less exciting then it's partner.

This is the dining area just off of the kitchen. Luckily that ungly chandelier is no longer hanging there. That's a whole other story.

This is the basement "bonus room" where we'll have a couch, fooseball, that sorta thing. The previous owners had there master down here, but the air ducts cause the ceiling to be a little low in the middle, which would look weirdie if we had our huge bed down here.

And the backyard. Fortunately, the grass looks better in this picture then close up. Not that it's horrible, but just a little uneven. This is from the back deck looking southwest (our house faces north). It's nice and big, plus already fenced all around.

And that's the tour of the house! The renovations begin this weekend, so stay tuned for some "before and after" pictures. Well, more like "before and now" pictures, since we won't even be close to finishing ANY room anytime soon.

Father's Day

Since we moved in with my parents, every time we've gone fishing, my dad says "oh, that'll be fun." Okay, we got the hint, but it never worked out for him to come. So for his Father's Day present, we got him a fishing license and took him float tubing. He's not very experienced. I can remember us kids getting him a fishing pole for Father's Day when I was like 6, and that day we went to fish. I don't think we caught anything and he's never gone since. So we left the house at 7:00am (yes, I had to wake up at 6:30 to go FISHING! Like fishing, love my sleep, adore my Daddy) and drove up to Silver Flatts up above Tibble Fork. Happy to say it was nice weather, and beautiful, don't you think?

I took lots of pictures, but didn't take the time to download yet another picture of Adam and I in float tubes :) So I put one of my Dad, caught the first fish! Here he is pulling his first fish our of the water to examine it
We had tons of fun, but the boys caught fish and I didn't :( I finally got one, and it got off before I pulled it in all of the way! The one that got away....

Summer 2009 Rodeos....so far

Giddy up, ya'll!!! It's rodeo season, so you know where we'll be on Saturday nights! We always hit at least three every year (Lehi, Pleasant Grove, and Scipio of course!) but since Scipio is on Pioneer's Day and these pictures were begging to be posted, I just have two for your viewing pleasure. Here we are at Strawberry Days in PG. It had rained THE WHOLE DAY before we went, and continued to rain while we waited for the rodeo to begin. Luckily we had our straw hats and a blanket, so we didn't get very wet. And the rain stopped when the rodeo began, but left the mud :) That was the funniest rodeo, everyone got up soaking with mud! Oh, and the strawberries, only ate two cups this year. And every time we tried to take pictures, Pete's hat would tilt mine all weird. Notice the guy on the far right? Why do people look at the camera when they know they'll be in it? He was nice, but looks SO grumpy.

And Lehi, more professional but still way fun. This day was perfectly warm, but got a little chilly at the end. Yum yum, burgers with special sauce. I had two by the end of the night! With these rodeos being only a week apart, isn't it crazy how hairy my man got? He used to NEVER shave! I picked this picture (though blurry) because this is the only on that the grandma on the right wasn't smiling at the camera. People are so weird! Now I kinda wish I put one that she was smiling, just to see how awkward. No cowboy hats at this rodeo! It was awesome, even the "half-time show" with the dirt bikers was awesome but way scary.

I hope you've hit (or will this summer) at least one rodeo! We look forward to it every year! Next up, SCIPIO!!!! I promised Adam I'd make my hair "as big as Scipio girls". Betcha can't wait to see THOSE pictures! :)

Opened Closets

I was reading a blog not too long ago, and it talked about closets and pantries, and how lovely it is to shut the door so no one can see the chaotic mess behind. Then I read a friends post today about a Relief Society lesson she just had, and how everyone wants to show their best side, whether at church, around friends, or especially on their blogs. So I read some of my older posts and didn't recognize this person that's on here! This girl seems totally sane (ha!) and loves to cook, sew, decorate, and spend time with her husband doing what HE likes (aka. fishing, air shows, SCIPIO, etc.). So, I'm opening my closet, getting it all out, in hopes of reorganizing :)

*I don't mind making my bed, but I never do it. I spent FOREVER making my cute bedding and it's only on my bed on the weekends......sometimes.

*I wake up 20 mintues before we leave for work. Now you get why I wear a ponytail almost every day?

*I sometimes take a swig of the milk in the fridge, but it's just me and Adam that drink it. Well, we hardly drink it!

*I never eat veggies. Not that I don't like them, but I'm horrible at planning meals and I never remember to cook vegetables until we're almost done eating. So I always try to eat my veggies when we go out to eat.

*I can't stand cleaning the shower. I'd rather vacuum the whole house TWICE then clean the shower. Maybe if I did it every week, it would be easier to clean.....don't think I'll ever find that out.

*When I got married, I seem to have become "fashion retarded".

*I leave bobby pins and hair elastics EVERYWHERE, but then there are always some close :)

*I don't like taking baths. I prefer hot showers, alright? Sue me.

*I have about 2 unfinished sewing projects for every one that I finish. Like that head scarf for Adam from last hunting season..... I promise I'll finish it!

*I never iron anything. Ever. Unless it's really bad, and then I try sticking it in the dryer for a bit to get the wrinkles out, and only after a couple attempts will I finally just iron it. I don't hate to iron, I just really suck at it.

*I rarely floss. Maybe once a month. Gross, I know. Too much detail? Probably. But I've never had a cavity and I have one of those stupid "permanant retainers" that makes it impossible!

*I can cook, pretty well I think, but after a 10 hour day and the daily question of "What's for dinner" (like I spend all day thinking about what I could whip up in 15 seconds to please a starving hubby) I usually don't want to. So, sometimes we just go to Costco. Or Ikea. Or Wendy's. Then I don't feel bad about the cost of eating out :)

*My husband drives me crazy when he leaves toothpaste in the sink, gets spots all over the mirror from whacking his toothbrush on the sink, and doesn't put the new toilet paper roll on the holder, but rather on the back of the toilet. I don't get it, is it really all that difficult! Yeah, weird things bug me, but I love him, so I brush after him so I can rinse out the sink, I clean the mirrors, and put the toilet paper from the back of the toilet to the holder.

The Big Day is Here!

All the papers are signed, the boxes packed, and now it's time to move! The big day is tomorrow, July 3. If you happen to be very available and want to help lift a few boxes (we know you love lifting!), we'll be moving in the morning. We're trying to get as many people as possible, so it should only take a couple hours tops! So come come come if you can. If not, feel so guilty! Just kidding..........kinda :) No, serious, we'd love help, but know about busy schedules and work. Let us know if you need directions to the starting point and a more specific time. And bring trucks if you have them, we'll pay for gas!

We're Moving! Again! To a house!

It's true! Here's the new house! Just in case you guys have no idea why I'm using so many exclaimation points.... there has been lots of drama, trying to find a house.
We've been looking for a house since the beginning of the year (before then, actually, but that's when we got really serious and got a realtor) and couldn't find anything right. We could find it, and it'd be sold before we could do anything, like the next day! Finally, we found a short sale in Lehi at the first of April and put in an offer right away. After waiting over TWO MONTHS to find out, we didn't get the house. It was neck-and-neck with some other people and they barely won. So we decided to book a cruise (to bring our spirits up...can't wait for September!). The crazy thing is, we found out last Wednesday that we didn't get it. We immediately jumped into looking at houses again, but our realtor was swamped and couldn't take us until Monday. On Monday we saw our house, Tuesday evening put in an offer, heard back from the realtor one hour later, and started our negotiations. By 11:00 am today, they accepted our offer and the paperwork started rolling! So here we go! We definitely know good things often happen fast, so we're so excited to start this new adventure. Anyone want to help with the move??? :)

****Oops, forgot to mention, the house is in Herriman :) Thanks Chantel*****

Could it really be....?

I don't want to jinx it quite yet, but something exciting might be happening over fourth of July weekend (well, exciting for us!). Stay tuned, and I'll let you know if something REALLY happens...

Recipe list

Ever get sick of using the same recipes all of the time? I know I do. When I feel especially bored, I like to go on Food Network and find something yummy (usually Paula Deen and Rachel Ray, they're my favs). For Christmas, Adam took all of my print outs and put them in protective sheets in a binder, so I have a "recipe book" to keep them in. I still go back to them all of the time. But when using a new recipe, you risk the "yucky" dinner. So I decided to share the wealth with recipes I've tried! I want to put a link (yikes!) on the sidebar, for anyone who wants an idea for dinner, and maybe figure our how you can submit them yourselves! I might be getting a little over my head, but I think it will be fun. Give me a little bit to see if I can get it up. In the meantime, here's one we tried last week. Super fast and easy, and perfect for tomato season!




4 6-ounce pieces skinless salmon fillet
4 medium tomatoes, cut in half
1/2 teaspoon paprika, preferably hot
2 tablespoons olive oil
kosher salt and pepper
8 sprigs fresh thyme
4 cloves garlic, sliced

Directions

1Heat broiler.
2Place the salmon and tomatoes, cut-side up, in a broilerproof roasting pan or on a rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle the salmon with the paprika.
3Drizzle the salmon and tomatoes with the oil and season with 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Scatter the thyme and garlic over the top.
4Broil until the salmon is opaque throughout and the tomatoes are tender, 8 to 10 minutes.

recipe courtesy of realsimple.com

Hope you like it!

Air Show and Kittens

We decided it was worth the traffic and crowds to go to the Air Show at Hill AFB this past weekend. It was so fun! We were there for probably 4 hours, and were never bored. Here are a few pics we caught. Most of the ones I took are flying airplanes, but hard to see so small.After we went through the gate and walked around for a few minutes, I pulled out the camera so we could document our attendence, before I completely forgot to take pictures (learned that from our honeymoon. Only 1 picture, and it's somewhere on a disposible camera!). Adam was not as obliging as usual, so I only got this one, after promising to make it REALLY fast! Glad it turned out really good (notice the pale color of our faces...not for long!) It was perfectly cool and warm and nice and sunny!

Here's Pete in front of the BIGGEST airplane! The back opens up, and so does the front, so a million people can walk straight through! I wasn't meaning to get Pete in the picture, just the plane, but he happened to turn at just the right time. SCORE!

The grand finale was the Thunderbird show. 6 F-16 Thunderbirds were doing so many cool tricks. I almost missed the show, because I was trying to take so many pictures, but I'm glad I caught this one. They were flying so fast towards eachother, and at the last minute, turned sideways so they didn't crash. So cool! We had tons of fun.

This picture is just funny. After the Air Show (notice the red face! Mostly just hot, but you can just imagine Pete, cause I don't ever burn and he does in seconds!), we went home (the my parents, of course) and they had found this lost kitten. I was holding it, sat down on the floor, and tried to get it to drink something. After successfully getting it to lick some milk from my finger, it started licking my shirt...in the same spot....for a long time. Couldn't get the poor thing off of me! Her little paws were pushing me, trying to get milk out I think! Pete had to take a picture, thought it was so funny. Never thought a kitten would think of me as it's mother!

Hope you had a great weekend too!

Decorating

With the hope of a owning a house very soon, I've spent A LOT of my extra time checking out decorating blogs and fun, different ideas on what I could do with such a blank slate. I found this vinyl design company, Lewa's designs, when I fell in love with this dandelion wall decor. Isn't it so cute? So "on the plains of Kansas", I think. My mom has a Cricut, so letter decals are easy for me to get, but these come in HUGE sizes. They have tons of other cute decals, from nature to nursery designs. Check them out if you have a blank wall you need to fill :) ww.lewasdesigns.com

Mother's Day Weekend

(Yep, me in all my non-makeup glory! Give me a break, Friday morning, on the lake. Nothing a hat can't cover up)

This is why I love working 4-10 hour days. Makes for long weekends. This past weekend we wanted to go fishing. They stocked Tibblefork early this year, so we wanted to get on the lake before the summer rush. Not much luck. It was windy and kinda chilly, but really fun. I out-fished Adam! I caught the first, him the second fish, and I the third and last! Hayley-2, Adam-1. And I also got to try my new waders and float tube out (not holes in either I'm happy to say). The float tube is a little smaller then I'm used to, but nice. I love that it looks like I'm sitting in a baby floatie, so funny. All in all, it was a fun day up in the canyon.

Getting ready to catch the first one and swimming to the middle of the lake
It was such a beautiful day to be outside.
Here's me with my first fish. No close ups, cause we try to stay away from eachother so we don't hook someone when casting.
Adam is so good at unhooking the fish. I'm still grossed out by the texture of their skin, plus I like going home with my hands smelling like scented lotion, not trout :)

Hope everyone's weekend was as fun as ours and that you spent at least SOME time outside!