Girls Night!

The other night my favorite girls from high school got together for the first time in SUCH a long time for dinner. Oh my goodness, after seeing them reminded me of how much I miss our high school and college days together. I loved our weekend trips down to Dixie to pick up Britt on our way to Vegas, our times in Moab and just our lazy days doing nothing.



It's amazing to me how much we have all grown up. Brittany with her baby Jaxon, Jamie teaching in Italy and Julie working in radiology. You girls are so beautiful and we have to do this much more often!

Go Nate!

This Christmas our gift to each other was finishing our basement. Mostly it was a gift to me because Nate did all of the work. I just followed him around with the broom. I love having such a handy husband. He did all the work himself from the framing to the drywall, except we had such great friends and family who were so awesome to help hang most of the drywall. We also received help from generous gift cards to home depot for birthdays and Christmas from family along the way. We didn't finish the whole basement yet, just the family room part of it. There is still room for a possible bedroom and bathroom.



Our next project... the bathroom! That may be a while... we are having too much fun hanging out in our new media room!




The dogs think we finished it as their play room. This picture is a little out of date already. We moved a couch and our siesta sac downstairs, and Nate mounted our TV on the wall. I am so proud of him and all the work he has done.

The Mixer

First of all I must tell my wife that I love her deeply... I really wanted to share a quick story with everyone about how much Kristin loves her Kitchenaid. So, when we got married I bought her one of those expensive Kitchenaid mixers, the sexy black one. Lets fast-forward to this week. Just on Monday, she was using it to grind her own wheat (to make some wonderful home made bread), and the dang thing locked up on her. I was a little frustrated because we had only had the mixer for about 18 months, and it was so expensive, but thought oh well that was fun while it lasted. Well, I guess she had grown attached to it emotionally because when it locked up she was so sad... The next two days were hard because she was so upset and couldn't drop the fact that her kitchenaid was ruined. I had mentioned to her that we could look into getting it fixed and before I realized what I had suggested, she was sending me emails with information on how to fix it myself... Being the great husband that I am that night I decided to to tear into to the mixer and fix the machine myself. 2 hours later our kitchen counter was covered in kitchenaid parts, it smelled like a shop from all the grease and oil that was in the unit too. I had discovered why it had locked up! The inside parts had pretty much melted to the metal housing of the mixer, no way that it could be fixed unless it was machined by the manufacturer. With the warranty expired, and the parts melted, there was little that could be done about the mixer. I thought the story ended there... but Kristin wouldn't give up, after a call to Kitchenaid and a long wait on the phone, she was able to get them to send out a new sexy black mixer free of charge in 7-10 days and after we get the new mixer all we need to do is send back the broken one. So, now I'm faced with the decision to send back a box full of parts or put it all back together...

2ND Anniversary!!!

Monday was Nate and my 2ND year anniversary and to celebrate we went up and spent the night at Hotel Park City. It was such a treat and a relaxing weekend. I love it when I get the chance to hang out with just my hubby. I can't believe we have been married for 2 years already. I can honestly say that the past 2 years have been such a joy learning and growing together with my husband. I love my husband and am so excited for so many more years to come.



Connected to the hotel is Ruth's Chris Steak House and where we ate dinner.
There are not words to describe the delicious meal that we had here. Wow... This was my first time eating at Ruth's Chris and I have never had a better steak in my life.... really.




This was the view from our room. Right behind the hotel was the golf course and then Park City Ski Resort. The mountains were so beautiful with all the fall colors. I love autumn, my favorite season for sure!

Halloween

Halloween night our friends Travis and Karlee came over to hang out and make yummy Navajo Tacos for dinner. After our friends Matt and Maryann and Paul and Tonii took their kids out trick or treating they all came over to show us their super cute costumes.







Here is the cutest duo ever Max and Carter. Max is the Indian and Carter is the cowboy. These two adorable boys are Matt and Maryann's kids.






This is Cinderella, aka Skylar, one of Paul and Tonii's super sweet and gorgeous daughters!




Here I have Kendall, Paul and Tonii's other beautiful daughter. We were best friends this night because I gave her all the junior mints she wanted.

Pickin' Pumpkins!

Our friends Craig and Teryn came down from Ogden a couple weeks ago and spent the night. Whenever Nate and Craig are around each other they get so crazy! Oh my goodness they turn into 12 year olds...



We went and picked out some pumpkins the next day near our house.



Teryn thought she would just drive this tractor home...

Road Trip!

Over UEA the girls all skipped town and headed to St. George for a nice long weekend in the sun. It was so nice to not have a schedule and to just do whatever we felt like. I loved being able to sleep in until the late morning, getting massages, eating, laying out by the pool, eating, shopping, eating, falling asleep to chick flicks, downing frozen oreos in one night and telling lots of secrets! I love these girls and our weekend was such a blast and so, so needed.



This is me, Tonii, Karlee, Maryann and Sue at the Pizza Factory.



Here we are just doing my favorite part.... nothing!



And our last night out at Texas Roadhouse. Thanks girls for an awesome weekend!

Say It Ain't So!

Tuesday night we went with Nate's mission companion Craig and his wife Teryn and and our friends Cory and Melissa to the Weezer concert. It was Craig's birthday and his wife surprised him with tickets. He had no idea how sneaky his wife was in planning it all and keeping it a secret for so long. Nice job Teryn!



Here we all are at dinner before the concert. I am sitting by Melissa and Cory and Nate is by Craig and Teryn.





Angels and Airwaves opened for Weezer. Before the concert I loved Angels and Airwaves. I was a little disappointed, because they didn't sound the greatest live. They were pretty crude too... F this and F that... oh my goodness, enough already. Weezer puts on a great show. They are so entertaining and nerdy! Not to mention they perform great live. I was so impressed. My favorite part was toward the end of the concert. X96 had a contest for anyone that played an instrument to try out to win a spot to perform with Weezer. About 3o people got up on stage with every instrument you can imagine. Someone had an accordion and there were all sorts of crazy instruments. You'd never believe it, but it didn't sound too bad.



This picture could have turned out good.... except what's with all the crazy lights?

Birthday Hike

On the morning of my birthday we drove up Yellow Fork canyon with our friends Travis and Karlee for a BEAUTIFUL fall hike. I love the leaves in the mountains in the fall time, so pretty!





By the way... this photo was taken right before the trail suddenly changed to a STEEP incline for the next couple of miles. Thanks to Travis we plowed right through it. If we were to have taken an after photo, our faces would be beet red and we would all be dripping in sweat.

ALOHA!

Last Saturday we hosted a Lethal Luau Murder Mystery dinner party. We have never done one or even been to one, so let's just say it was a "learning experience." We had a feast thanks to everybody helping out with the food. Dinner included coconut shrimp, chicken teriyaki
with stir fried vegetables and rice, yummy salad, and grilled pineapple with vanilla bean ice cream and carmel sauce. Everybody looked awesome dressed up to fit their character. There were 3 scenes to the mystery and after the first scene the cd skipped to the end and revealed the murder. The next day we figured out that it was set to shuffle... what a bummer! We thought the night was ruined until someone suggested playing mafia. After the dinner and games our friends Travis and Karlee came over to hang out. For some reason they thought going to a lame BYU game was more important than being a part of our cast. If it was a Utah game then maybe they would have a good excuse.






This is Les Baggs, he is the typical tourist visiting Hawaii... or so he wants you to think.


Nadia Seymour, a super model in Hawaii for some photo shoots.


Cheif Honikawa Wikiwiki and the extremely wealthy Holly Day.

Sweet Escape

Over Labor day weekend Nate and I and the 2 mutts went down to Lake Powell with all of his family for a week of good food, homeade ice cream, soaking up the sun, going big on the new wake board, cutting hard on the ski and being lazy on the inflatable island. By the 2ND day the dogs were more exhausted than I have ever seen them. We could not keep them out of the water. The company was more than you could ask for hanging out with Nate's parents, his 2 sisters and their husbands and our 4 nieces and nephews. Sadly enough the week had to end with high winds and a thunder storm with tons of rain. They say it's monsoon season right now at Powell.

Up to the mountains we go!

A few weeks ago we drove up the canyon and went camping with our friends Matt and Maryann and their 2 adorable kids Max and Carter. We ate hobo dinners and had a delicious apple crumble for dessert. (thanks Maryann!) The next morning we had a hearty mountain man dutch oven breakfast which fueled us up for our hike to Donut Falls!

We are def needing to get some other pictures on this blog. Maybe some other pictures of us enjoying the lake out on the boat. I would consider that our main love in life right now, other then of course our dogs, family, friends, and each other. Kristins parents have been in Cambodia for the last 14 days, its been nice to use there home theater for just the two of us. Her parents and family return this evening, we will be picking them up at the airport right after work. From the sound of emails and the look from pictures that we have seen, it looks like it is very hot and humid..... making memories. The pictures that they have sent have been very different from what I have imagained...

After some prodding, we have finally gotten the blog going. Last week we bought a new camera, well.... it was mostly cause I 'miss placed' Kristin's about 4 months earlier. :)