Stacie's Place

Jon Schmidt Performance

2012-01-12T14:07:00.000-08:00

If you don't know who Jon Schmidt is or seen his videos on YouTube - you definitely will want to check them out! He came and spoke at the Sandy Institute last night and this was the very first song (below) he played out of the 4 he performed that evening.

It was amazing to hear him perform and hear his words of encouragement to the young-single-adults there. His words applied to everyone though - married or not. Here are a few of the notes I took...

The Lord rewards persistence
Give heart to God and he'll keep you on the right path
God wont let us make many false steps
He doesn't want us to stand still, he wants us to move!
Be strict to remember the Lord every day (Alma 38:5)
If you trust God a little you will be delivered a little, if you trust God a lot you will be delivered a lot
If we care about it then God cares about it

Lanikai BBQ

2012-01-08T21:29:00.000-08:00

Saturday night after errands were mostly done, Tony & I decided to check out Lanikai Grill - Hawaiian BBQ in South Jordan, compliments of $6 off our food from the Entertainment Book.

Tony got the BBQ beef, rice and pasta salad. I tried a piece of his beef before it was gone and it had such good flavor and was very juicy. Fantastic flavor as well.

I ordered the Kalua Pork (a fave of mine from AZ) and mine came with rice and pasta salad as well. The pork wasnt as flavorful as I remember it being at Hawaiian restaurants I tried it at in AZ but I still ate it so fast and neither of us had leftovers after this nice dinner!

You can check out the Lanikai website here

They also cater events such as weddings, birthdays, office parties, etc

You can see a menu on the website as well as pictures of

events they have catered at

Mekong Cafe

2012-01-05T22:24:00.000-08:00

There's a tiny little restaurant tucked next to B&D Burgers on State Street just a few minutes from where I live. For awhile we passed by without even noticing it! Once I spied it I looked it up online and it had pretty good reviews so we decided to check it out. Tony was hesitant to go at first because he is not huge into Thai food but we both really liked the food we ordered. We went in the evening during a week night I think and were seated fairly fast as it wasnt busy. There was another family or two in there.

Mine below, if I had known there was no website to go back to to get the name of it, I would have written it down. The flavor was so so good! Wide noodles, veggies and I got it with beef. Chicken is also an option. I rarely order beef when we eat out as it usually tastes too chewy/stringy but this beef was actually not like that at all. The texture was great and I would order it this way with beef again. There was an even amount of veggies vs. meet vs. noodles. Would love to order this again when we go back!

Doesnt this food make your mouth water?!

Tony got chicken kabobs that came on a bed of lettuce with a sauce and then another little dish of cucumbers in a flavored liquid.

They dont have a website but are located at 7725 S State St, Midvale, UT 84047

Belated NYE

2012-01-03T21:27:00.000-08:00

Found this cool survey from another blog so I copied and pasted to answer the questions here. Be sure to check out the blog I got it from!

1. Do you stay in or go out for New Year's Eve?

I go out! The last 3-1/2 years I've lived in AZ , the YSA get together for lots of parties! Polar Ice is one of my favorites for free ice skating, Krispy Kreme donuts and hot chocolate. Amazing Jakes is a game place I went to one time and last year about midnight one of the church buildings hosted a breakfast for anyone who wanted it. Then I heard about a waffle party at someone elses house so my friends and I headed to that as well. Ahh, lots of party hopping!

2. Comfy clothes or dress it up?

Def wear comfy clothes - esp if Im going ice skating! It would be fun to dress up though. Maybe in the future.

3. Feeling tipsy or non-alcoholic?

Totally non-alcoholic. I just like to have sparkling cider!

4. Big gathering or just the immediate family?

big gathering if possible

5. Rockin' with Dick Clark...yay or nay?

YES! Something I missed watching this year was all the concerts on TV and the ball dropping. For sure am not going to miss out on it next year!

6. Special treats to eat?

One year Tony came to Arizona and we bought 3 different kinds of popcorn at Costco along with peppermint bark. I'm sure we had other treats too. This year Tony made dip and we brought chips to our friend's house. The dip was so good - just Velveeta cheese and salsa.

7. Do you make resolutions?

Goals, not resolutions. Goals seem a little more attainable to me. Yes, I make them every year and try to print them out and hang them somewhere to remind me every day of what I want to work on / improve / do / learn

8. What was your favorite thing that you did in 2011?

Ohmygoodness - really cant decide! One of the top things was getting married to my love!

9. What do you wish you'd done more of in 2011?

Taken more pictures and gone on a trip to Portland. There were trips or places to go nearly every month so I hope to fit a Portland trip in this year. It's already getting full of trips already though! Also wish I had exercised more and gone swimming. I didnt go swimming ONCE in 2011 - terrible!

10. What are your traditions for New Year's Eve day?

In Arizona it was always go to the Fiesta Bowl parade in downtown Phoenix , then try to find places open to go do stuff. I'd usually find a mall or some stores to go shopping at and find great deals. Now that there are no parades on NYE day on the state I live

The End!

2011 Recap

2012-01-02T19:56:00.000-08:00

I dont want to brag or anything , I know a lot of people had a pretty cruddy 2011 but for me it was completely fantastic (for the most part). Just wanted to recap the cool things I got to do last year and I hope this year of 2012 treats me just as well. I get nervous that it wont because last year was so awesome. Fingers crossed my fears dont become reality. Let's get started!

JANUARY

Tony came out to Arizona for New Years and besides going to the Fiesta Bowl Parade in Phoenix, we made it to the Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch. We got to feed the animals - including cute birds! and took a ride around in the monster truck, learning about the area from a super knowledgeable guide.

Got to go to CES - Consumer Electronics Show - in Las Vegas for a day and it was so so much fun! Saw lots of cool things and won some software and got lots of freebies as well!

Hanging out in Vegas with Emily!

The weekend I was in Vegas, Tony met me in Kanab area and we hiked the Wave - a hike that is not easy to get tickets to but we got them! It was not too bad of a hike, we got some fantastic pictures and made it back to our car just as the sun was starting to set.

FEBRUARY

Wedding is coming up in April so I started collecting things for that!

Valentine's Day weekend - Tony came to Arizona again - we dealt with car problems, went shooting and went to eat kabobs! These are the things I remember. I'm sure we did lots more!

MARCH

Went to the Amococo Exhibit at the Mesa Arts Center with my friends Brandon and Danny. It was really cool!

Ended my 3-1/2 years of having room mates by moving to Utah on the very last day of March. Above is Candace and I hanging out the morning I moved. Got some free food at DQ!

Tony & I with my moving truck. Tony took time off work to come down and help me finish packing and load up the truck. Special thanks to my friend Candace who helped a bunch as well. Im so not happy to be leaving Arizona for Utah. To a state then when I moved there I had to pull out all my winter clothes again! No bueno!

We did get to stop at the Grand Canyon on our way to Utah though. It was super cold, I had no jacket and everything was closed but it was still neat. Hope to go again someday when the weather is better.

Huge voting contest that went on in February for a makeover and photoshoot from Elle J Photography. I ended up winning - went down to the WIRE! So intense. Huge thanks again to all my friends who voted for me. The results were pretty freekin' fantastic...

SO great huh! Got my first real spray tan, hair done, makeup and a new outfit from So Cute Boutique.

APRIL

Besides more last minute frantic planning for our wedding on April 23, Tony was building our bed frame a week exactly before the wedding and ended up cutting his hand pretty bad with the saw he was using. Cut off a finger and damaged a few others on his left hand. He was in the hospital from Saturday to Monday and we left Wednesday to drive to California for the wedding. SO crazy!

Coming out of the Sacramento temple where we were married

Us with the parents :)

Honeymoon - this is along Highway 1

Ocean beach behind us!

Visited the Aquarium which maybe I went to when I was younger but I dont remember it!

Eating some Dippin Dots at the boardwalk!

MAY

Got to go to Arizona with my sister and a friend and attended my best friend Brennen's wedding. He and Amanda make a really cute couple and their reception was so unique! Loved it and that I was able to be there for it and surprise them!

On Saturday we all headed down to Rocky Point, Mexico with my friend Chris. It was awesome! Lots of window shopping and hanging out on the beach. Not enough time just spending 1 day there but we made the most of it!

The next day we headed back to Utah and I think Celeste was riding home with someone else so it was just Laura and I. We stopped at Horseshoe Bend in Page, AZ and it was def. worth it!

So cool!

My brother Matthew left for his mission to Houston TX South. We ate at KRico beforehand.

Tony & I did a camping trip and went to Nine Mile Canyon.

We went to Fantasy Canyon

We went to Vernal, UT for a weekend and checked out Flaming Gorge and other neat attractions in the area. You will have to check out our travel blog for more details.

JUNE

Salt Lake City Summer Crew picked me to be a part of their summer activities and every week we had a different challenge to do and then we had to post it on Facebook,

our blog, and Twitter.

This is the only picture I seem to have from the weekend

we went to Idaho for one of our wedding receptions. My dad and I.

Another SLC Summer Crew Challenge and my first time at the SLC zoo.

Me, Celeste and Bonnie helping with Extreme Home Makeover

Backstreet Boys / NKOTB concert in Phoenix, AZ!

JULY

Tony met me in Arizona and we drove to California that night on Friday. Got to my friend Tim's house about 2am and slept for a few hours before heading to Disneyland!

It was neat to be in Disneyland for fireworks on the 4th of July weekend!

We also go to see World of Color on the California Adventure side.

Stopped at the St George temple on our way back up to SLC.

Never been here before so it was pretty neat!

Went to California for a couple weeks and got to go to Girls Camp at Camp Ritchie for the...let's not count how many years I've been going.

Went to VidCon in Los Angeles. This is my 2nd year going. After being away from Tony almost 2 weeks now I was really really missing him and couldnt wait to get back to Utah! It was still a fun time at VidCon though.

Went to the Eyes to the Sky hot air balloon festival in Salina, UT on my birthday weekend. This was our second year going and it did not disappoint. Last year at this festival is where we got engaged! We made it earlier this time so we didnt miss the balloon glow. We camped in a very memorable spot - there was a dead cow we passed driving to find a spot. Spooky!

This is very very bad - I cannot find my blog post about the trip above. I know its the weekend we were in Salina..this is around Escalante. We did some small hikes and checked out areas that Tony had found online to see.

Double rainbow on the way back to SLC

AUGUST

My brother Jeffrey (in the dark gray shirt) returned home from spending 2 years as a missionary for the LDS church in South Africa. It was cool to go to Idaho to hear his homecoming talk and spend the weekend with our families.

Sandy Hot Air balloon festival.

So close to where we live!

Tony eating at Smashburger for the first time!

County Fair in the area, pretty fun!

SEPTEMBER

Remembering Sept 11th in Sandy, UT

Went to my first RSL soccer game.

The stadium is like 5 minutes from our house!

Went to my first Rooftop Concert in Provo, UT

Participated in the world's largest game of Dodgeball at Thanksgiving Point

Hiked to Donut Falls with Tony and other people, a hike put on by my friend Jaclyn

Tony finally finishing cutting the wood for our bed frame!

He watched while a guy from our ward cut the wood

Won an iPad in April from my orthodontics office in AZ.

Won another iPad from the SLC Summer Crew end of summer contest.

Sold the first one I won so that Tony could buy a tablet and I kept the second iPad.

Lucky year!

Drove up to Big and Little Cottonwood Canyon's to take

pictures of the beautiful changing leaves

OCTOBER

Thanks to my stake in California - they sent us their extra tickets to General Conference. Woohoo!

Hosted my first Pinterest Halloween party at my house

Dressed up and no where to go (except a popular haunted house down the street and around the corner from us.) I was a caver and Tony was a ninja.

Highlight of October was for sure going to Albuquerque New Mexico to the Hot Air Balloon Festival. It was AMAZING!

I heart AZ

Tony eats hot air balloons

NOVEMBER

Went to Idaho for Thanksgiving and did lots of shopping and ate lots of yummy food. Plus did some fun crafts from Pinterest with my sisters! Laura rode with Tony & I but Rocky had to stay in Utah to work at the restaurant.

Food at Tony's parents house on Saturday. SO GOOD I wish I had a bigger stomach so I could have eaten more!

Back in Utah...found out about a Tmobile Holiday Party in Sandy and ended up getting our names drawn so we each got a phone! Wow!

My friend Adrianna came from AZ for her cousin's wedding so we ate at KRico Peru in SLC. She brought Theodore with her who is as cute as ever!

DECEMBER

Went to The Forgotten Carols with my friend Lindsay.

My sister had her baby at 26-1/2 weeks.

You can read more about little Riley on his blog here

Drove out to Willard Bay with Tony's friend Marc and his wife Jen to see the Christmas lights. We didnt realize it was quite so far (45 min) away but it was cool to drive through all the lights that had been set up in different scenes, esp since I didnt get to go to temple square this year to see the lights there.

Thanks to Utah having a dry winter, we were able to drive to California for Christmas

and stayed at my friend Linda's house. Laura dipped lots of pretzels for us to deliver and Tony & I visited lots of friends , he fixed my back brake and we did lots of last minute Christmas shopping. Hehe.

All my wildest dreams came true on Christmas morning when I went downstairs and the owl pillow pet was underneath the tree. I was SO SO surprised! It was so magical! This is not one you can buy on the website, ebay or Amazon. I thought all hope was lost the night I did not buy it at Walmart when I saw it.

Christmas morning - the goods!

My grandparents and I at my aunt and uncle's house in Woodland

Sweet Christmas decoration!

Merry Christmas from us to you!

All in all minus having to move from Arizona - its been a super wonderful year! We stayed fairly healthy (minus Tony cutting off his finger) and we got to do so many fun things and go lots of fun places. Looking forward to new trips and adventures and traditions in 2012!

Hunting for The Perfect Tree

2011-12-22T14:34:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine I met on Twitter through a mutal friend was able to get Tony & I a pass to cut down a Christmas tree at Fish Lake National Forest. After going to an hour of church on the 11th of Dec, we headed out. I thought the trip was going to take 3-1/2 hours so I brought lots of snacks and things to do. It turns out the trip took a little over 2 hours. We were going to go up higher on the mountain but when Tony's truck started sliding on the snow, even with his 4-wheel drive turned on, we decided to just park and walk to find a tree.

Found one!

[Im working on editing a cool video I made of how we got the tree]

It was pretty snowy - my boots got covered! I am wearing a pair of Tony's snowpants because I am not sure what tub mine were in. Thank goodness, they kept me a lot warmer than my regular pants would have.

Snowy snow and animal tracks!

Carrying the tree, which we found out later he was allergic to :( He had red bumps all over his arms but they went away after awhile.

Driving down from where we came - SO MUCH cow poo all over the road. Gross! but funny.

Our lil tree tied down in the back of Tony's truck!

I'm glad we didnt get lost or die trying to find and cut down our tree. It was something Tony was really wanting to do. I grew up with an artificial tree and one year when Laura & I had our own apt. in Woodland, we went to the tree lot and picked out a tiny tree. So expensive! The permit to get this tree was $10 but Tony probably spent about $40 in gas. Oh well, like says, "its all about the experience!"

Here it is in all its glory - its not very tall, but thats okay! Got some white lights and teal beads and a week or so later I put silver ribbon on the tree, a red bow on top since we dont have a real topper, and lots of cool ornaments...

Do you get a real tree or an artificial one for Christmas?

Baby Riley

2011-12-12T16:19:00.000-08:00

In case you havent been keeping up with my Facebook statuses, my sister here in SLC had her baby on Dec 6th at 2:15pm. He weighed 2 lb 1oz. They named him Riley Zane. My sister had no idea she was even in labor but ended up going to the hospital in a lot of pain. She was dilated to a 9 and ended up having to have an emergency C-section. The full story will be on her blog sometime soon I hope. If it was ME I would have it posted already! The doctors dont know why he came so early but he is doing really well for only being 26-1/2 weeks old! His due date was in March so he will be in the hospital until then or maybe get to come home a couple weeks sooner. Laura got to leave the hospital on Saturday evening but has gone every day so far to visit Riley.

I wish I could post a picture of him on here but Laura wants to be the first to post pictures online and she is taking her own sweet time! Again, If it was ME I'd have pictures posted last week. Ha!

Anyways, Riley is doing great, can breathe pretty well on his own and is drinking the milk from Laura already even though the nurses were going to wait until he was 32 weeks, they decided to give it a try and he is drinking and digesting it pretty well so this is good! He has really long fingers and legs. They havent measured him officially yet but he looks to be about 12 inches long. He has short dark hair that looks like it will be curly. It is going to be so fun to watch him grow!

Cedars of Lebanon

2011-12-05T00:05:00.001-08:00

Cedars of Lebanon

Thanks to Groupon for providing us a coupon to eat here!

Dessert first! Chocolate mousse. I'm sorry the pictures are so dark, the lighting in the restaurant was not very bright. The mousse however was delicious!

Next we got our appetizer - LAHM AJEEN. (ARMENIAN).

Open faced flatbread, topped with ground lamb and

beef , tomatoes, spices, onions, and lemon juice.

This soup I cant find on their website but we could pick soup or salad with the kebab and our waitress explained the soup, tomato base with barley. She said if we didnt like it, she would bring us a salad instead. It actually didnt taste too bad so we finished it off.

LAMB SHISH KEBAB.

Tender Lamb marinated with variety of spices and skewered ,

served with rice and vegetables

When we walked in, we could have chosen to sit on one of two sides..a side with pillows and was more casual, or the formal side in tables and chairs. We opted to sit in the tables and chairs. Maybe next time we will try the other side. Since it was the weekend they had a belly dancer performing part of the time we were there. She had some cool sword balancing tricks. When the music was playing, it was kind of loud. It didnt bother me too much but Tony didnt care for it. We really enjoyed our appetizer and the main dish - the lamb shish kebab was so so tasty! The rice was a little dry but eating it mixed with the lamb or veggies made it taste better. The vegetables were squash, a red pepper maybe? I'm not quite sure and it came on a leaf of lettuce. Sharing all these items we were pretty full!

Its kind of an expensive place to eat (you can see prices on their menu online) but if Tony & I share a dish every time we go, drink water, and dont get dessert, its not too bad. Definitely a place I'd love to go to again!

Tmobile Holiday Party

2011-12-04T23:31:00.001-08:00


Thanks to House of Smiths (I think Shelly hates me now,agh...more on that at the end) , I found out about this event at the Tmobile store at the mall close to where we live, just a few hours before it happened. Tony wasn't going to go with me, but at the last minute decided he would.


Lots of yummy food and drinks for us to enjoy!

After signing up for a Tmobile plan (since being in contract is a lot cheaper than being out of it like Tony and I have been doing for the past 7 months), we participated in trivia questions with the Tmobile employees. Above is a group (Shelly is with the blonde hair and black and white jacket), answering questions. Every time you got one right, you wrote your name down on 1/2 of an index card and they were going to draw 5 names and those people would win free phones!

The closer and closer it got to 9pm the more anxious I was to find out if mine or Tony's name would be chosen. There were probably...30-40 people at the event.

Getting ready to draw the names...

Tony won a phone! His name got picked 2nd! He could pick the Mytouch LG 4g or the Slide. He picked the Slide. A photographer there got nice individual pictures of those who won the phones but I dont know where those pictures are posted yet!

In fact, we BOTH picked the Slide because my name got drawn next. WOOHOO we were floating on cloud 9. After winning, the event was over, I met Shelly on the way out and I think she was a bit jealous that Tony & I both had won phones. I was disappointed because I really admire her and all she does with her blog, her family and just her life in general. I would probably feel the same way though towards meeting someone for the first time who had won something I had wanted to win. Darn it! Ultimate fail for the situation but super WIN for Tony & I ...we were so stoked to have gotten our names called and Tony was so happy he had come along with me after all.

Tony's phone which he ended up selling since he likes his HD2. I still have mine, am debating what to do with it because it doesnt look like I can put MIUI (Android system) on it but it would be really nice to have a backup in case anything happened to my current phone. So for now, I'm hanging on to it. Tony's was all black. Mine has a black front and white back.

Our bag of swag from the evening! A flying noise making monkey - so funny. A really nice water bottle, 5 hour energy drink, a travel size bottle of ibuprofen, hand sanitizer from Bath and Body Works + holiday shopping tips. SO SO nice!

Randomitis

2011-12-04T23:23:00.001-08:00

Driving downtown SLC past Pioneer Park where the Occupy protestors were camping out. This was in..October probably. Glad they are not there anymore!

Back from Idaho and Monday-Tuesday I was sick to my stomach and not feeling well. Food poisoning? Tony was super sweet and bought me some oj, ginger ale and an electric blanket! The blanket will come in handy when he works out downstairs and we watch shows on the TV. Im usually cold downstairs but not anymore!

Adrianna and I met when I was a missionary in the YSA ward in Portland, OR. Last December she and her family moved to Arizona and we had a glorious few months together before I moved to Utah :( She came to Utah for her cousin's wedding this last week and afterwards, later on in the day, she and Theodore met Tony & I at KRico Peru in SLC for dinner. So awesome to see her and catch up a bit. I know we just saw her in October at the Hot Air Balloon festival but I love seeing friends from the past whenever they come to town. Thanks Adrianna and Theodore for meeting up!

Saturday night - the parking lot right next to us. Such a fire hazard!

Sunday - our house temp today when we got home from church. Finally turned on the heat for the first time since moving here in April. (not counting the space heater I drag back and forth from our bedroom to the office)

Bought 2 of these heat packs at the Christmas expo I went to on Saturday with Laura. They are interesting little things. Heat is supposed to get up to 127* and last up to 45 minutes. Got them for Tony's jaw which has been hurting. You press the button and the liquid turns to gel and also gets hot/warm. To get them back to liquid form you put them in a rolling boil pot of water on the stove for about 10-12 minutes (for this size). They are pretty cool! Gonna have to test them out some more but hopefully this helps Tony better than the heat from the rice bag - which is good - but doesnt last long.

Sour Patch Kids

2011-12-04T22:56:00.001-08:00

Sunday after church with Hailey and before we left to drive back to Utah. I love this picture and it was so fun to see Hailey and how much she has grown since I last saw her in April. She is talking more and knows some of her numbers and abc's. Fun!

Went to sacrament meeting in my parents ward and then a girl who was down visiting her parents (who are in my parents ward) from BYU , came to the house and rode back to Utah with us. She was fun to have on the trip! Lots of talking and snacks shared :)

iPod music, cup of crunchy ice and a row of Sour Patch Kids accompanied us on the way home.

Thanks mom and dad and to Tony's parents for having us over for the holiday. It was really fun to see everyone!

A Second Thanksgiving

2011-12-04T22:07:00.001-08:00

Saturday morning I dropped Tony off at his parents house so he could go to the Boise State game with his dad, brothers and brother in law. This left me free to spend the morning doing more shopping with Laura, Evan and even Julianne came along! We met up with her, Shawn and Hailey at DI and then headed to Old Navy, Craft Warehouse again and a few more stores.

Trying on a cute kids hat. Haha. I ended up getting boots, a new jacket for church and a shirt.

Craft Warehouse with a $40 owl. Ooh I loved it!

Stopped to get Burger King cherry icee floats for everyone and a Little Ceasers pizza. Hung out at home for a bit, then headed to Tony's around 4pm for a 2nd Thanksgiving, Mexican style!

Waiting for food to be ready - Tony, Julia and I played Uno and above is Tony playing a card game with his nephew Tadman.

Trishna and her husband Justin made chicken and pork chimmy chongas - oh. my. goodness. They were SO good I wish I could have eaten more than just one. There was rice , dip, chips and toppings. Pie for dessert but I was so full I couldnt even eat any. Holy moly though, I feel like the picture doesnt do it justice but it was one of those meals I could have died happy and gone straight up to heaven.

Tony and his other nephew Jackson

Super neat carving from Tony's parents trip to Egypt in April. They bought one for each of their kids. This is so amazing and I'm proud to add it to our Christmas decor.

Relaxing and playing "What If" - a pretty fun game once everyone got the hang of it.

Trishna reading the cards and moving everyone's marker. Fun game to wind down the evening. In the past everyone has gone mini-golfing or bowling but this year everyone seemed content with staying home after calling a few bowling alleys and finding out we couldn't reserve any. Maybe next time!

Black Friday Shopping

2011-12-04T21:44:00.001-08:00

Ice on the windshield as we were heading out to more stores but no snow :)

Went to Home Depot (2 actually) and bought some 2 TB internal hard drives for the media center Tony is building. Then we stopped in at Cabella's and Tony found a good deal on some ammo.

Evan with an elk behind him

Polar bear!

Tony reading about these..animals. I forget what they are called.

Then we stopped at Sonic so I could get my free breakfast buritto, then home to my parents where my dad had made bacon/eggs/pancakes for breakfast. Left again, this time leaving Tony at the house to get to know his tablet and took Laura & Evan out. Stopped at Goodwill first with Julianne and Shawn, I found some cute star ornaments (actually Laura did but I bought them) but that was about it.

We went to the mall and I found these cool owl earrings at Kohls...

Super cute but way expensive owl purses!

oohhh I LOVE this owl plate - I think it was at Sears? Macy's? On sale but I couldnt justify spending $20 on it still :( aiii I kind of wish I had gotten it!

Another cool owl purse

Tony's 6 month anniversary to me! WOOHOO - he didnt pay $100 for it..it was much much MUCH less. Yay for great sales at Kohls! Thanks Tony - love you love you!

Other than that I got a sweet teal pullover v-necked fleece long sleeved shirt from JC Penny's for less than $5, shirt and hat for Pandy & Hoote at Build-A-Bear, foamy soaps at Bath & Body works...lots of looking , didnt buy as much as I normally do but it was all worth it! Stopped at Plato's Closet <-- the one in Boise is the BEST one I've ever been to. Seriously. There was actually room to walk around! Stopped at Petco, Craft Warehouse , ShopKo, Deseret Book and Office Depot again and thats about all we had time for before heading back to my parents house for another yummy dinner. I didnt want to go out again - my legs and feet were so sore and burning from so much standing and walking!

Did you score any super good deals on Black Friday?

Idaho Thanksgiving

2011-12-04T16:13:00.001-08:00

Was so blessed to be able to go to Idaho again this year for Thanksgiving. The weather there and back was MUCH better than last year. No snow! My sister Laura rode with Tony & I because at the last minute her husband had to stay to work at KRico. Sad! Tony put the car top carrier on my car which I bought at a swap meet and it was so helpful! I kept checking to make sure it didnt fall off along the way. It didnt.

Stopped by to check on the "Occupy Best Buy" people (jk) and it was crazy that there was already a line on Wednesday, or who knows when it actually got started. More on this later.

Hailey playing on the ipod

Arrived at my parents house and Jeff and Evan were so kind to help us unload a few things from the car. Tried to sleep in on Thursday - Thanksgiving! - because we knew we would be up and out late. I missed the parade but woke up in time to eat with everyone and hang out.

After we ate, Tony left to go stand in line at Best Buy for the Asus tablet. He left around 3:30 and my sisters and my mom made some crafts from Pinterest...

wreaths

ornaments

also we made cards. Were supposed to do glitter nails but never really got around to it :-/ Next time!

After eating some pie and watching some movies with the family, Jeff dropped me off to join Tony in line at Best Buy. It wasnt super cold but then it started drizzling. At least we had some cool guys to talk to while we waited in line. Then everyone put their chairs and tents away around 10 because Best Buy was supposed to start handing out tickets for items but they ended up not starting until 11. The item Tony wanted didnt get handed out until around 11:30!

Waiting in line. He was about the 50th person and the line went way past him and wrapped around the back of the building. Some people tried to cut but we spoke up when the employees came by offering an item so that those people didnt get anything for cutting!

Sucess! Got a ticket for the Asus tablet. The 42" Sharp TV's for $199 went fast and we didnt get a ticket for one of those. Darn it.

Once they let us in to the store, Tony grabbed the Asus and a keyboard for it and we got in a pre-determined line.

Then I went to Ulta and we both went to Target and Walmart - I could have kept going if I'd had an energy drink. Next year! We went back to my parents house around 2pm to sleep for a few hours and then left again at 630 to hit up some more stores!

Where To Begin?

2011-12-04T15:18:00.001-08:00

So I totally failed blogging every day for NaNoWriMo...time to catch up and blog about Thanksgiving, some fun places Tony & I have eaten out lately , Tmobile Holiday party and more! First, check out this Christmas survey I found on a fellow blogger I follow...

1. egg nog or hot chocolate? I like both! Egg nog tastes like a milk shake to me. Soo good. I am really wanting a peppermint hot chocolate from Starbucks too

2. does santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? I'd say wrapped because you dont want to see what you get before Christmas!

3. colored lights on tree/house or white? both look good to me. I'd like to do white lights on our tree this year and will probably do my red and white colored bulbs for outside

4. do you hang mistletoe? nope

5. when do you put your decorations up? starting in December

6. what is your favorite holiday dish? everything at my grandparents house that we eat on Christmas! Ham, deviled eggs, stuffed celery, a salad that has marshmallows in it...oh boy!

7. favorite holiday memory as a child? always going to my grandparents house and seeing the relatives and opening presents + the food!

8. when and how did you learn the truth about santa? I dont remember, when I was a kid, my parents told me but I dont remember how old I was

9. do you open a gift on christmas eve? growing up we started doing that for a few years, my mom and dad would buy a gift for each of us , something simple like Pringles or...well, Pringles is all I can remember. Probably just a food item. Then we would take turns picking a gift and you could steal someone elses gift if you want...or maybe we didnt do that part. Either way, it was fun to see what everyone got

10. how do you decorate your Christmas tree? with ornaments. I want to get some silver and teal/light blue bulbs this year to hang along with our regular ornaments.

11. snow! love it or dread it? living in Utah where it snows, I dread it. Fun to visit but not to live in

12. can you ice skate? no tricks but yes I can! Love to ice skate!

13. do you remember your favorite gift? When I was like 8 or 9, I got a big chalkboard like the old ones they have in schools that you can flip and write on either side. Loved that thing.

14. what's the most important thing about the holidays for you? remembering why we celebrate Christmas is #1, serving others and of course shopping, going to events in the community and making treats!

15. what is your favorite holiday dessert? one of them would have to be chocolate peppermint bark
.
16. what is your favorite holiday tradition? it used to be doing the 12 Days of Christmas but now I guess its making holiday treats to share with friends and neighbors. Also going to see the lights on the temple grounds, whether it be in Oakland, CA, Mesa AZ or SLC , UT.

17. what tops your tree? not sure yet. Its my first Christmas being married..I guess I have all the ornaments from past years of having trees but I dont recall ever having an ornament on top. Tony & I will have to find a nice star I guess!

18. which do you prefer: giving or receiving? its so fun shopping for people (kind of hard too) but its neat to see what gifts people get you that they picked out..so I'd say, both!

19. candy canes: yuck or yum? pretty tasty. I like having the different flavored ones besides peppermint

20. favorite christmas show? Elf and the old Miracle on 34th Street. Also, Its a Wonderful Life and Frosty the Snowman. I saw Arthur Christmas this year and wouldnt mind including that in my favorite Christmas shows!

21. saddest christmas song? sad Christmas songs? Not sure but I dont like "Santa Baby" or the "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" songs!

22. what is your favorite christmas song? any from The Forgotten Carols or "Baby, What You Going To Be" , never played on the radio but loved singing it in choir in CA when I participated in that sort of thing

If you want to play too, copy and paste the questions above into a blog post of your own.

Comment and let me know so I can go check out your answers!

Last Meal

2011-11-02T23:31:00.000-07:00

Sorry in advance for the pictures being all over the place. No matter how hard I tried , Blogger wouldnt let me center them!

Second day's question, "If you knew that whatever you ate next would be your last meal, what would it be?" thought provoking question! I'd have to pick...

Burger with animal style fries from In N Out

How could I forget a plate of Lomo Saltado from KRico Peru?! My favorite dish there by far although other things I've tried have been awesome tasting as well.

Kabob plate from Texas Roadhouse

Salad from Sweet Tomatoes

Cherry icee with ice cream from BK

Froyo from Yogurland

and

A cup of crunchy ice.

What would you choose?

Halloween & NaMoBloMo

2011-11-01T22:59:00.000-07:00

November is National Blog Posting month. So in coordination the question for Nov. 1st is , "What is your favorite part about writing?" I think when I write I like that I am not having to submit it as homework to some teacher to criticize. I had a horrible teacher at the community college I went to in CA..I had just come back from a mission and he wanted us to write about current events and events that had happened the last while, which I had missed out on since I was a missionary. Trying to catch up on events was hard and I wasnt really in the mood to know them either. Before this English class I didnt mind writing and actually enjoyed it but after this class, I grew to hate writing. Out of a full class with a wait list , by the end of the semester there was 10 or less of us left. Ugh.

On to Halloween...

Tony was a ninja

I was a caving chick

Went around the corner and down the street to a haunted house but we were a little too early. Oops. So we went home and I handed out some candy to kids.

Came back and the news was there. Kinda cool. A line of people too but we only had to wait about 10 minutes or so.

They had a TV outside showing people going through the maze. Nice feature

Going through was pretty cool. The guy who put this together did an awesome job! Tony jumped so hard when the guy raked something on a metal door gate that made sparks. I had seen it on the news already so I wasnt startled really. I laughed so hard at Tony though!

We watched some TV and ate orange and black chips with salsa and mac & cheese. High class. What did you do for Halloween?

The Awful Waffle

2011-10-28T00:21:00.000-07:00

I met up with some friends to check out a place I heard about recently called, "The Awful Waffle" in Provo. So after my Tuesday class I headed over and it was literally just a few minutes away from where I was at on the BYU campus. I missed the parking lot but parked right next door at the gas station. I didnt know what to expect for the location and food but was happily surprised.

Since there is no indoor seating this would be a great place to go eat waffles and crepes at in the summer. Colder months are good too, just dress warm and soon they will be offering hot chocolate. Here's what I ordered....

I wish I had been able to go in the daytime to get more pictures but hopefully seeing these pictures that my awesome friends took on their cell phones because mine was too dead, will give you a desire to check out The Awful Waffle, which really doesnt taste awful at all!

I am soo excited about my crepe, I got strawberries and bananas inside with whipped cream on top. Everything was super tasty and the flavors together were terrific. Surprisingly it stayed warm through almost the whole time I was eating it despite how chilly it was outside.

So yum that I licked my plate clean as my friend photo-bombed me. Haha

I was the only one who got a crepe, my other 3 friends got waffles with various toppings such as speculoos, chocolate sauce, whipped cream , berries and peanut butter - just to name a few.

My friend got this waffle with vanilla ice cream from the Creamery and bananas, topped with speculoos and crushed oreos. It looked so good that next time I might try that one out!

If you are ever in Provo around BYU , go check it out and give a waffle or crepe a try! You can pick different types of batter for your waffle and even get a topping mixed in to the batter!

Location: 815 north 700 east, Provo, UT 84604

Blog: http://www.theawfulwaffleshop.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheAwfulWaffleShop

Twitter: http://twitter.com/awfulwaffleshop

Halloween Pinterest Party

2011-10-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

Taking a break from the NM trip to post about the party I had yesterday (Saturday) at my house. I decided a month or so ago that it would be sweet to have a Pinterest party (check out Pinterest.com if you dont know what I'm talking about) and while I was gathering ideas for it, things seemed to fall into place and I decided 2 weeks before the 22nd that that'd be a good day to have it. Partly because it was not too close yet close enough to Halloween and Tony would be downtown in SLC anyways watching his Boise State game so I wouldnt have to kick him out of the house. I invited quite a few friends but in the end only a few could come. Its okay I guess, my place isnt super huge for a large gathering and we all ended up having a lot of fun! So here's some pictures from the big day ( I was so nervous & excited at the same time)

Labels for water bottles that I found by Googling actually and then I pinned them on my Pinterest board. I only have black ink in my printer and used regular tape but they turned out good!

Found this idea to decorate cups for drinks on Pinterest. So many googly eyes!

I'm not big into cooking/baking but Friday night Tony helped me make this candy corn bark (another Pinterest.com idea) and it turned out yummy! I used Halloween Oreos (regular ones can be used too) , pretzel sticks, white chocolate and candy corn on top. Once it was left to set overnight, it was ready to eat in the afternoon at the party.

Made these pudding cups also but mine dont look quite as nice as theirs! I didnt mix in food coloring, I just used banana and butterscotch pudding and topped it with whipped cream.

Many thanks to my friend Celeste for contributing a can of juice to mine for this tasty berry punch mixed with 7 Up. Thanks to my sister Laura for donating a couple of gloves from the restaurant and she made ice hands to use , giving it that Halloween feel - esp. when on the 2nd hand (pictured is the first) she broke one of the fingers off! haha. Tony had gotten 1-1/2 lbs of dry ice to use but when I went to get it out of the freezer, it had all melted (?) away! Guess we'll get more next time or get it right before the party.

Table before....I have orange and chocolate candies in the jar on the left, orange taffy on the right as well as red and black licorice. The spiders were also an idea I found from Pinterest, easily made with a blow pop, black pipe cleaner and more googly eyes. I also have black and orange chips with salsa.

Table after more people brought treats. On the left there are fruit kabobs (strawberries, bananas, grapes and pineapple), n the front are chocolate covered pretzels that Laura bought, then mini candy corn sugar cookies that Lindsay brought - so good & from Pinterest and the caramel apples were made by my friend Debbie and were to die for! She brought one for everyone. Super nice!

I've always wanted to do a cupcake bar because I love cupcakes! Laura made them and I provided red hots, candy corn, Halloween itty bitty sprinkles, frosting and gummy bears for the toppings. Tony helped me make the icing the night before (which I pinned to Pinterest because it turned out so good!)

Craft time!

Lindsay brought empty cans, cheesecloth, tacky glue and googly eyes so we could make these cute mummies you see above.

Laura putting her mummy together

Nicole brought oranges and cloves for everyone to make a jack-o-lantern face and they smelled super after we were done. These are our mummies and oranges hanging out together.

By this time it was almost 5pm so we didnt have time to decorate pumpkins , but I found some fun ideas here:

http://pinterest.com/pin/259626020/

http://pinterest.com/pin/198845325/

(use ribbon instead of tape)

also I had everything to make these mummy pizzas:

http://pinterest.com/pin/228685911/

but again, we ran out of time and there was already so much other food. I guess I sort of overdid it on the food but better to have too much than not enough I suppose.

Everyone got to take home a gift bag which had fun little things in it like a Halloween straw, stretchy spider, candies, mini B&BW hand sanitizer and these which I made

http://hopestudios.blogspot.com/2010/10/trick-or-treat-mummy-treats.html

Mummy Hershy bars. I didnt have cheese cloth and could have used white tissue paper or crepe paper but instead I used fancy white/shiny leftover ribbon from our wedding. Worked out great!

Even though when Tony came home I was laying exhausted on the couch it was so worth it to throw this party and see some of my friends who live in UT now. Excited to plan and do another party with a Christmas theme!

Friday...and Then Some..

2011-10-14T23:46:00.000-07:00

In the afternoon Tony & I went to see some petroglyphs (click the link to read about that) and checked out the mall where we paid a little visit to Build-A-Bear and got Pandy and Hoote Halloween costumes. Lol. I found a cool owl shirt and then we took off back to the field/park where the balloon were.

Here's a funny picture I took in the morning - maybe on Saturday actually since Friday it basically rained all day. This picture makes me laugh soo much because it looks like Tony is about to eat the hot air balloon. Ah ha ha

On Saturday & Sunday they had Navy Seals jump out of a place and do tricks in the air. It was pretty impressive. They would have done this Friday but the weather wasnt cooperating.

In the evening I bought a few more souvenirs (Christmas tree ornament, earrings and another trading pin) then we went to a sports bar where my friend Carli met up with us and we ate food and watched the Boise State game. By 10pm Tony & I were exhausted so we left Carli to do karaoke and we went to bed as Saturday was going to be another early morning. It rained all night long and stopped about 1am I guess. Fingers were crossed and prayers said that the weather would truly be good for the last remaining days of the festival.

Friday Morning Balloons

2011-10-14T23:15:00.000-07:00

We arrived at the balloon fiesta at 530am Friday morning. The weather was cold and lightly rainy. They canceled the morning events which was a bummer since they involved the special shapes balloons but we stuck around for awhile and the rain finally stopped. Some balloons did fill up but stayed on the field.

I like the pink and purple checkered balloon. And behind it is one of the kissing bees...

Pink Elephant balloon

Advertisers

Im so so so so excited to be at the Balloon Festival - the largest in the world. It only took us 11 hours to get there and there were people from all over the world who came as well!

There's a balloon coming outta my head! LOL

Starting Our Way to Albuquerque

2011-10-14T00:17:00.000-07:00

We left Thursday after work on October 6th to head to New Mexico for the 40th Annual Hot Air Balloon Festival! SUPER EXCITED! We were on and off again about the trip up to the very day we were supposed to leave because of bad weather in Albuquerque but we decided to go anyways. As you can see from the picture above, Provo area was getting some bad weather as well! PLUS earlier in the day there was some snowfall which did not make me happy at all. I am in denial that summer is over in Utah.

So around Provo area we remembered we had forgotten to grab tickets hanging on our fridge that would get us in to the park each day ($6 savings per person). We got ahold of someone at the festival who said we did need the actual tickets, a photo on our phone would not work :( Bummer. So we drive 40 min back home (it could have been worse) and grabbed them + some other items we'd forgotten, ie; my sunday shoes, the jelly for pbj, some utensils, etc. Then we were on our way again!

Here's a sneak peak of what cool pictures you can expect to see in the next few blog posts. This one was taken on the last day (Sunday morning). Ahhh this whole trip was quite the adventure and definitely something I'll never forget! Stay tuned...

October General Conference

2011-10-14T00:08:00.000-07:00

My stake back in CA is so awesome. I email my friend every conference time (April and October) to see if there are extra tickets to attend any sessions of conference. Usually there are no leftovers but this year there were 6 extras! 3 for Saturday afternoon and 3 for Sunday afternoon. SO on Saturday my friend Celeste , my sister Laura & I all went to the conference center. It was pretty fun and fantastic!

Our seats were in the terrace level on the very left hand side. Saw the Wagnon's, Henneke's, Crandall's and Bro. Wayne Cox! There may have been other people there from my stake but I didnt see any. My friend George Henneke came over and said hi to Laura & I. SO NICE, I just love and miss the people in the Woodland stake so much. It's never been the same since I've moved to AZ and now UT. Anyways, we got to move down to the main floor level because there were extra seats so of course we jumped up to move down there! Better seats and so worth it.

The afternoon session was fantastic, I'll add in a little about each talk in a blog post in the near future. After we got out of the conference center, we all went to eat at KRico Peru (lomo saltado pictured above! Mmm) and my friend Heather who lives in Reno now (we met in CA) was in town for conference and she met up with us at the restaurant. Laura had some errands to do so the rest of us went shopping - first stop, Plato's Closet where they were doing give-aways, massages, refreshments and discounts on clothes. It's so much fun shopping during the Priesthood session of conference. So many stores having awesome sales!

Celeste and I went to Robert's Craft Store next after a lot of driving around trying to find one that wasnt shut down and closed! The whole store was 1/2 off so of course I went a little crazy in the scrapbook and crafty department. Cant wait to do some projects!

Sunday afternoon Tony & I went to the conference center and I had given my 3rd ticket to my friend Debbie. She sat in our section but I didnt see her and my friend Annie from AZ was in the conference center too but we werent able to meet up even though we called and texted each other. Bummer! Better luck next time.

Walking to the conference center. So many people!

Standing to sing an intermediate hymn with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

And yes, I did see Alex Boye'!

Cute couple going down the esclator on the way out of the conference center.

Goodbye everyone until April!

Car Show in Taylorsville

2011-10-13T23:43:00.000-07:00

One Monday night we went shooting with Marc , one of Tony's friends, and on our way to where we go shoot, we saw a little car show going on in a parking lot.

Tony and Marc looking for a good spot to set up

So after we got done with shooting, Tony & I stopped by the car show which was luckily still going on. Took a few pictures of some pretty sweet cars!

I dont know why I like going to things like this so much...maybe it reminds me of going to Hot August Nights down Main Street in Woodland, CA in August with my dad and brothers and sisters. Even though it was hot and sometimes crowded , it was neat to see the old fashioned cars and my dad knew some history behind them which was fun to hear as well.

Thank goodness car shows like this still exist and whether big or small, I love going to them!

Slacklining in the Park

2011-10-13T23:32:00.001-07:00

September 20th Tony & I went to slacklining and a bbq at a park in SLC. My friend Jaclyn who moved here in August from Arizona, set it up and it was pretty fun! They bbq'd chicken and there were lots of other treats too.

Tony is really good at slacklining! He can get up on his own and nobody has to hold his hand.

I can only get up and walk on the slackline when I have someone to hang on to. It was still fun though

So talented! I should have stood farther back when I took the picture though.

There were about 10-15 people that showed up and it was fun getting to know them and hang out until it got dark.

Real Salt Lake & One Republic

2011-10-13T23:24:00.000-07:00

September 17 2011 - My first time at a Real Salt Lake soccer game at the Rio Tinto Stadium which is literally just a few minutes from our house. Kind of nice! Tony found a jersey that I could wear , it was perfect! The weather was great too. I got the tickets from a friend on Twitter who was in the SLC Summer Crew. We really scored , very good seats and One Republic was set to perform after the game!

The guy to the left had super long thick hair. It was kind of funny because at first I thought "he" was a "she". Teehee

This guy was a huge fan, his jersey had Section 26 on the back (custom made) and his red shouter thing said Section 26 on it also. He seemed like a hardcore fan. Probably a season ticket holder.

Real won , 1-0 :)

Flags waving in victory! Hip hop hooray!

Fans pouring out on to the field for the concert. We stayed in our seats because we didnt feel like standing. Then one of Tony's former roommates (that he met on the mission) was sitting a few rows behind us and called out, "Hoxsie!" so they talked for awhile and it was cool to meet him and his wife. He is a police officer and we talked about me doing a ride-along. YES!

Kinda the best pic I got of the concert since we were so far back but I loved all their songs and was surprised at how many I knew. Def. going to download some more of their music! It was a great evening and a fun time at my first soccer game in Utah.

Donut Falls Hike

2011-09-19T11:57:00.000-07:00

This is the sign I saw when we started the hike. Pretty crazy!

This mile was about a mile and a half round trip. My style of hike! It was a little bit muddy/slippery since it had rained the day before but not too bad.

People were climbing to the top of the waterfall but it was pretty wet and slippery so I didnt attempt it. We met up with Jaclyn who moved to UT recently from AZ and there were a bunch of people with her. We would have hiked more with the group but we got a bit delayed trying to find the hike and then they all beat us back to the parking lot. O well.

The scenery was very pretty though

Way pretty background behind me. I should have opted out of the picture!

Having a thinking moment. Haha

Some cool trees

Tony had bought a Groupon that we could use for lunch only at Fat's Bar & Grill and Saturday is pretty much the only day we can use it so we decided to go there after the hike. We got nachos as the appetizer which were pretty good but I've had better.

The pineapple pizza had mushrooms on it and the bread tasted like wheat instead of white flour. Interesting. I was definitely a fan of the toppings and the crust was a nice change.

DODGEBALL

2011-09-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

So this last week has been spirit week for BYU and University of Utah I guess. I go to neither school but have just seen updates from friends who go to those schools on my Twitter and Facebook.

On Friday night , whoever wanted to participate, headed out to set a world record for the largest dodgeball game ever played. Tony wanted to stay home and watch Boise State play so my friend Celeste picked me up a little after 5 and we headed out to Thanksgiving Point where the event was happening. It had been raining all afternoon but luckily it cleared up just in time for the game. Phew! We waited in line 15 minutes or so after meeting up with Celeste's sister Bonnie and her friend Kat.

Little kids dodge ball game

We got 2 wristbands, one red and one blue. We got a tshirt (either red or blue). Food was free JDawgs, which I dont like hotdogs but I got one for Bonnie and Kat to share because once you got food, they snipped off your red wristband.

The line of balls ready to go ...it was a lot longer (to the left) than what is pictured here

Celeste, me, Bonnie & Kat ready to play! GO BYU!

People standing around waiting for the game to begin. They had a stage set up with a DJ and then later a band came and played.

Some people were wearing some interesting stuff, like the guy in the white jacket on the right hand side of the picture, had short black biker shorts on. Ew!

Celeste and Bonnie with their phones

You might have to click the picture to enlarge it but straight ahead in the very middle of the picture is a tall guy, painted RED from head to toe! Pretty crazy

The game is about ready to begin! There was a ton more people on the blue side than on the red side

dodge the dodge balls!

me with my back to the game, a dangerous thing to do!

My friend Celeste :) Bonnie & Kat didnt want to play but Celeste and I stayed on the field and I got a lot of the action captured by my camera, pix and video

click to enlarge this panoramic of who was left when the game was coming to a close. Celeste and I got on top of a hill to get a better shot. The bright lights for the field messed up my pictures though :( Wish the game had started before dark!

My friend Devin (check out his YouTube channel - amazing vids!) in the middle of the action with his camera, filming (he is in the dark blue sweatshirt right in the middle of the picture). It was so cool because I saw him ( I knew he was there) and said "Hey Devin!" and he came over and we talked for a minute or two. I really admire his work!

It was a great evening and they had a movie (Dodgeball) and dance happening an hour after they ended the game but Celeste and I were cold and ready to go home. It was a fun event to be a part of though and I heard we set the world record so look for me in the next Guinness Book of World Records. Haha jk

Utah "State" Fair

2011-09-15T14:37:00.000-07:00

I should not have gone to the state fair here in Utah with such high expectations. I was hoping it would be as great as the Sacramento and Phoenix state fairs but sadly , it felt the size of the Yolo County fair that I grew up going to in CA. Which, btw, that county fair ROCKS, its free to park, free to get in, and the exhibition building is pretty big. Plus I always run in to people I know. And there is a booth that sells papusas. Mmm.

Since I live in Utah and had never been to the state fair here, Tony & I decided to check it out on Monday night and then I went again on Tuesday night with Laura & Celeste for "The Taste of Utah".

Carved out of butter! Pretty amazing.

We got a kalua pork and rice bowl for dinner on Monday night. It was pretty tasty, the long wait in line was worth it.

Luckily we were right close to the sea lion show so we walked over there to eat our food and wait for the show to start.

It was pretty entertaining. I kind of wish I had taken a video!

Checked out some of the exhibits that people had entered. I miss entering things in the fair! The fair in AZ I felt like there was too much competition to enter but maybe the SLC fair I have a shot at winning next year if I was to enter something. We'll see. Anyways, I LOVE the dress on the right, the material and the style. Super cute!

Super funny to me

Went to see some of the animals , some were being put away for the night but this goat was so hungry he got down on his front legs to reach his food!

Tony always takes the best pictures of me...ha

This one is better

Funny sign that we saw walking back to our car. This is the parking lot we ended up parking in. Only $5 to park instead of $6. Woot. Saved $1!

TUESDAY EVENING AT THE FAIR

Taste of Utah - I heard about this event by googling it I think? Because I know Idaho has a "Taste of Idaho" so I wondered if Utah did. then saw it was happening at the fair and there was a tweetup happening as well so I signed up! Laura & Celeste came with me too. Inside the tent we got to try many yummy foods from local vendors.

Fat Boy ice cream sandwiches, Apple Beer, Utah Truffles <-- Laura & I both got a little sample pack of them because we are on Twitter I guess? and the girl working the booth 'knew' me from the SLC Summer Crew! Way cool to meet in real life! back to who was there..Seal Sasma teriyaki sauces, Laurie's Buffalo Gourmet (chips and salsa), Sweet's (they carry my favorite cinnamon bears!) , Miller's Honey Company, Good Grains by Gregory's - got a whole slice of their cranberry orange multigrain bread. NOM! Utah Natural Meat, and Frida Bistro, just to name a few.

Cafe de Rico & Market - got a free tshirt and hat from them...was thinking to give away the shirt on my blog for a contest but I dont know if I have enough readers that anyone would even participate?

It was so great to find out that a lot of these vendors sell their food at Whole Foods, which I just bought a deal for online ($20 worth of food for $10) and now that I know what their products taste like, I will definitely be buying some of my favorites. All in all, a success!

I wanted to get this panda blanket for $35 but we kind of have a lot of blankets already. But you can never have too many, right?

Big & Rich was performing at the fair that evening. The night Tony & I went , it was Weird Al.

We had to stay outside the gate because we didnt have tickets. But there's a tiny view of the stage!

With the concert and yummy kettle corn!

Laura & I

Silly picture of me with my hat I bought at the fair Tuesday night (since Tony wasnt there to stop me..LOL)

If Your Life Sucks Its Because You Suck

2011-09-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

Ah ha ha the title of this blog post made me laugh. It's something that Alex Boye' said last night at the Sandy Institute fireside/mini concert that I was able to attend. He got those words off a bumper sticker and seriously, its so true! Personally, I don't think my life sucks so I must not suck! Yeah! :) I don't give it a chance to suck, I try to stay busy doing fun and interesting things. People that are negative and say their life sucks and are down in the dumps, they suck, since they dont want to do anything about their situation to change it. I'm being bold here, but its true. Back to Alex Boye' though..

He started out with his conversion story, which really was entertaining. Actually, he started out with this video and then he sang us all a song! LOVE to hear him sing.

The fireside started at 830 and at this point when he was getting close to the end of his story it was almost 10pm. Some cool things he said that I took note of were...

"Conversion is when you do things on your own with nobody telling you to" (well, I kind of paraphrased it since I couldn't swype on my phone fast enough. Lame.

"Happy people seem to receive revelation more than unhappy people."

We as LDS people should be the happiest people on earth but generally we are not (I know I'm not always happy!) "The world is a great mirror reflecting who you are." (paraphrased again). "We all walk around with a story." [ so basically, don't judge ]

"If you continue to walk around with doubt and worry, that's what you will reflect to people." He gave some tips to be more positive. Really cool. Ready? Here you go!

1. Start and end the day with positive thoughts. Morning noon and night.No mediocre thoughts. Say, "I believe I am always divinely guided." [this is what he says, you can say whatever positive thought you want I guess, either out-loud or in your head]

2. "I believe I will always take the right turn in the road."

3. "I believe God will always make a way when there is no way."

Then he said to look up 2 Nephi 24:24. [I linked it for you]

Since I've met Alex a handful of times in the past, I decided to bypass the long line and head home because by the time I left , it was almost 11pm! But here's a picture for your enjoyment :)

2008. Maybe I do need to get a more recent pic of us!

Remembering Sept 11th

2011-09-12T22:31:00.000-07:00

Tony and I stopped by The Healing Field at the Sandy City Hall on Sunday after hearing about it from Brother Cox in our ward. I sure am glad he told us about it as it was a pretty touching thing to experience.

This picture above makes me laugh because the boy is about to shake the soliders hand and the girl looks like she is trying to stop him. Haha!

Actual debris from NYC, World Trade Center

Tony holding a flag with all the names of the people that died that day

I really like what this milestone says, "The rights of the people are superior to the power of government." This has been forgotten by the government I think

Reading about someone , most all the flags had information/ some history on a person who died at the World Trade Center that day

So many flags

A new statue they unveiled outside of the city hall, I really really like it

There were quite a lot of people visiting the field while we were there

Reading of the names which we stood and listened to for a few minutes before heading home

Swiss Festival!

2011-09-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

Before the Swiss Festival in Midway, Tony & I had lunch at the Red Lantern which is 10 minutes or less away from us. We pass by it sometimes and tony has always wanted to eat there so I treated him to lunch since he bought and fixed the headlight on my car the day before. I ordered the Lemon Chicken and Tony got Orange Chicken but they ended up tasting mostly the same. It was pretty tasty and we even had leftovers that we shared with Laura later.

Waiting in line in a makeshift parking lot to board the shuttle to the festival. Can you see Tony's "I Love You" ? So sweet.

The line was pretty freekin long. Up by the white tent was porta-potties and close to that are the shuttle buses!

So much Swiss food! Swiss sandwiches, tacos, ice-cream, who knew! We didnt buy any food to eat. Maybe next year!

Cute kids playing their fiddles - some kids were so young!

Very cool to see, wish I could have sat and watched them for a bit but we were on a schedule!

Greg Olsen signing someone's art. In case you missed my Tweet or Facebook post, you can get 40% off his art on his website by using the family & friends code Sept 40

Cute jewelry. The heart has 2 birds in it! Of course it would have been fun to buy it all but mostly I just looked.

Laura took this pic of Tony & I. It was a hot afternoon! Next year we will go in the morning when it's cooler.

There were SO many vendors/booths set up. They even had one called "Relief Society" that was selling homemade bread. Funny. I bought this cool owl cutting board...

dont you just love it?! I do...oh..yes...I do!

Rooftop Concert Series - Provo

2011-09-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

So Tony is not a huge fan of concerts and music as much as I am it seems but fortunately he agreed to go to the Rooftop Concert series in Provo last Friday night for our date night. It was pretty fantastic.

The first band we didn't care for, but next was The Vibrant Sound, which was really good! And last out was Imagine Dragons which we both liked a lot as well.

This post was in our way. Oh well, it was as close as we could find to the stage to set our blanket down.

The guy in the blue shirt is Chup , Courtney's wife from the blog www.cjanerun.com - one of my faves to read!

Another photo stalk shot..they were sitting pretty much right in front of us! CJane was one of the hosts that evening. I dont know where her little girl was but her son was there (see the little kid standing) It was so amazing to see them in real life that I was too awe struck to go up and say hi. Aw, maybe next time.

Imagine Dragons performing. The night was cool, perfect, I was with one of my favorite people and the crowd was not too crazy. All in all a fun date night!

Afterwards we dropped off some items to donate to my friend Natalie who was having a fundraiser yard sale the next day & we stopped by Del Taco to get a cheese quesadilla and some funnel cake fries. Mmmm

Are You Busy?

2011-08-29T11:18:00.000-07:00

No? Yes? Kind of? Not sure? Well, if your answer is any of those I just mentioned, here's something that will only take a minute or two of your time and would help me out a ton. As part of the SLC Summer Crew we have had challenges to do all summer. The last one, since summer is over (tear) is to make a video about one of our favorite things to do or see in SLC and get people to vote on it. Voting ends on Saturday. It looks like you can vote at least once per day. So...here's what you do:

Click here: https://apps.facebook.com/contestshq/contests/148977/voteable_entries/29260371
to vote for my video (you must like the "Visit Salt Lake" page first in order to vote)

Please share this with your family/friends/coworkers/whoever has a Facebook page. Thank you so very very much for your help!

Hike to Bell Canyon - Lower Falls

2011-08-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

Monday evening was an adventure for sure. The girl who planned the hike ended up having to cancel but Celeste , Tony & I were all set and ready to go so we decided to do the hike anyways, we had directions and figured it would be fine. First, we got a late start because Tony didnt get off work on time. Instead of leaving to get there at 530pm we arrived at the trailhead close to 7pm. The directions were a little off and we could not find the start of the trail at first but some quick searching online helped us find the right place. I only took a few pictures, mostly we were trying to go kind of fast because the sun was starting to go down and I had hiking sticks in my hands so I couldn't always be using my camera. There were some really pretty parts to the hike after we finished 8-9 switchbacks.

dirt and rocks, Celeste and Tony ahead of me, entering a path covered by trees.

Celeste - so cute while hiking!

Tony & I..yeah..I was tired and we still had a long ways to go . Def felt like more than 2 miles to the waterfalls. We were probably about 20-30min from the falls when we stopped and decided to turn around and go back. Major disappointing. We did have headlamps but with all the rocks to climb around and on we didnt feel totally safe hiking it in the dark.Not sure how long it took us to get down but not as long as it took us to get to where we hiked! We did find a couple who didnt have flashlights and they had taken a wrong turn so they followed us back to the main road and the hiked to their car and we took the other path to hike to ours. In N Out for dinner afterwards was a relief, it felt good to sit as my feet felt like they were going to fall off! Maybe we will attempt the hike to the falls again a different time.

Random Bits

2011-08-23T12:40:00.000-07:00

Driving to Wyoming on the 14th to visit my friend Catt who was in town (from Mesa, AZ) visiting her family because her brother is going on a mission. So we hung out for a couple hours outside eating and talking and meeting some of her family. It was great seeing Catt again , I miss hanging out with her!

Tony had a Groupon to go eat at Pirate Island in Orem. Sadly the night before we went (Sun) it caught fire (suspected arson) but we decided to go Monday to check it out anyways since we were going down to Provo for a game night with some friends. It was true, closed and will open again but not sure when. Disappointing! Luckily Groupon refunded his $$.

Utah rarely seems to have good sunsets but the other night I caught this one...

On the 18th Tony's work had a potluck picnic. So super good! Loved my burger, the corn on the cob and my potato salad and mint brownie. Great company, delish food and perfect weather. It was up in a canyon , maybe in Little Cottonwood Canyon? The road we took was 1 way in 1 way out so luckily we didnt run into anyone heading down!

After eating and getting ready to head back home. Such a pretty area!

Some of the same sunset (shown above)

Saturday the 20th Tony & I went to the Bulward Auction in SLC. Bid on a rug and won it. Yay! Our first time ever to bid and win anything! It goes for a few hours , we only stayed for a couple hours. Sadly we left before they got to the electronics. Oh well, next time!

Next we checked out the Farmers Market in SLC. This booth is called Jack Mormon Coffee Co. What the what?! never heard of such a thing. Weird.

These guys and girls were doing fancy moves, not sure what it is called , as they chanted/sung a rhythm/song. It was interesting to watch. I bought 3 cucumbers and Tony bought some honey to make bread with. We bought Apple Beer (so good, unique to Utah I guess?) and got free samples of cheeses and other delicious foods. But mostly cheese. Fun time although it was hot. Would love to go again, I'm so jealous of all the people there selling produce from their garden. I cant wait until I have room for a garden again!

Salt Lake County Fair

2011-08-23T12:20:00.000-07:00

Tony and I went to the Salt Lake County fair on the 11th to check it out because parking was cheap (free because we ended up parking at the church next door) and it was free to get in. Here is some of the cool stuff we saw. Sorry for the lack of quality of pictures, they were taken on my cell phone.

Santa surrounded by pandas. So funny.

We didnt ride any rides , this fair was smaller than the fair in Woodland, CA!

Checked out the animals and saw some interesting ones. This one above is SO FLUFFY

sitting down - this one has a long neck

pretty colors

pop your collar!

head all backwords and crazy - like an owl!

these funny birds , holy moly, their feathers were all curled!

I want a bunny rabbit. So super cute and soft looking

pretty fugly..

heads are so fluffy!

This one was pretty and calm.

Funny little headpiece of feathers there

Did you know that the people who rescue reptiles in SLC rescued SIX alligators last year thrown away in dumpsters? pretty crazy, I had no idea!

Got a feather in my hair after (I mean before) seeing all the cute chickens, doves, and rabbits!

Sandy Hot Air Balloon Festival

2011-08-23T11:57:00.000-07:00

I'm sure by now you all know how much I love hot air balloons so of course, whenever there is an opportunity to go see them in real life, I go!

On August 13th Tony & I met up with my friend Celeste outside the Sandy City Hall, about 10 min or so from where we live, to attend a hot air balloon festival and concert. Behind us is a funny pig hot air balloon. Never seen one like it!

Tony and I with a cool balloon background. The weather felt pretty nice, no need for a jacket! We brought a blanket to sit on and some trailmix for a snack since we hadnt had dinner yet and it was already 8pm.

I see a little bit of fire going up into the balloon!

A bluegrass band, Cold Creek, performed. As you can tell from the sky there was a storm rolling in. Sadly the balloons didn't stay inflated too long before they were taken down. Good thing they came down because shortly after that it got super windy and everyone started leaving. Too bad for the band who had to cut their show early because of the weather.

Tony & I went to Smashburger for dinner, he had never been there before and I have been a couple times with my grandparents in CA and I've been wanting to take him! He made a custom burger and I got the swiss mushroom burger (my favorite). We shared fries and he liked them a lot. Yay for a successful dinner and maybe a new favorite place to go eat here in Utah.

I Dont Expect You To Understand...

2011-08-01T15:51:00.000-07:00

Shoot I need to blog still about my CA trip & Girls Camp. But I'm getting ahead of myself and its okay! Its my blog so I will post in whatever order I want. SO on Friday night Linda took me to the Sacramento airport (I've been in CA the last 2 weeks for Girls Camp & visiting/working) so that I could fly to Los Angeles for the 2nd Annual VidCon 2011! So stoked (despite missing Tony like crazy). My flight was delayed, I had to change my shuttle bus but I finally finally arrived at the hotel about 11pm. Super bummed because I missed DeStorm perform at the concert that night as well as many others. (VidCon was Thursday <-- industry day through Saturday). I met my roomies, Holly & Zah (who was from England and had a sweet accent!) and Chesney , my friend from AZ, shared the room with us as well. The internet was terribly slow and kept kicking us off. I got caught up on some Facebook after going down to the Lobby to meet LaneVids and Mr. Arturo (who I didnt even know was coming!) Even at 11pm the lobby was FULL of YouTuber's it was pretty awesome to see.

looking out from the balcony, we were room 1111. Easy to remember. Second pic was taken from across the street where there's a pretty sweet mall that I went to for lunch (Wetzels Pretzels) and dinner (Ajisen Ramen).

Why was I in LA? For VidCon 2011!

Outside the doors for the main stage where they had panels and music and dancing!

Sorry for the lack of quality on my camera phone pictures. This was Annoying Orange doing a panel of sorts. I walked in a little bit late.

Dan 3.0

Revision 3 I think

Hank Green (Vlog Brothers)

Josh Sundquist - very inspiring! Check out his channel here

Phillip deFranco

So you might be wondering, why the heck do I go to this conference when I dont vlog or post too much to my YouTube channel ? I think mostly because a) its a really cool things to go to since my favorite YouTubers are all in one place b) it helps boost my confidence that I CAN make and post my vlogs c) I started a new YouTube channel right before VidCon to post new videos to [mormongirl782 channel...dont care for the name anymore and I made it forever ago! Sadly YouTube doesnt let you change your channel name. Not even once. Boo.] d) I can network and interact with people I might not be able to otherwise e) I really look up to those who vlog and admire their ability to film, edit and make money (some) off of their videos. These are some reasons why I go.

Shane Dawson in the plaid shirt signing autographs

ijustine's sister Jenna in the gray and black striped shirt receiving a gift from a fan

me with the Trejo family right before they left to drive back to Vegas. Super super nice. Just found out about them recently on YouTube so I've been following their channel a bit. Had no idea they were coming to VidCon so it was a nice surprise to see them!

Got to meet my friend Lane! (aka LaneVids on YouTube) soo exciting to meet him irl! (in real life)

YouTube woot woot

table full of business cards from various YouTubers

Narvaez family (2 of them) Check out their channel here

They sing the covers of songs pretty much. The little girl who is 4 is def not shy and has a pretty good voice as well as her dad.

Babytard's car! See the epic derby race here

hiimrawn playing the accordion. I really really really like that carpet (the squares one)

Outside for lunch on Saturday afternoon and can you see the two birds perched on the edge of this person's bowl, helping themselves? Kinda cute!

me and Chesney in the Main Room on Saturday afternoon

Guy who created Improv Everywhere. SO COOL

hHis name was Ricky. We were all in the same elevator. But no, he is not Ricky Martin even though he totally looks like it!

Lane with his cool business cards!

Our hotel room!

This year's VidCon was bigger and in some aspects better than last year. I scored at least 5 free shirts and FINALLY got the one that Tony sent me (a Shaycarl shirt - YES!) , had free smoothies, tried to win a Looxcie bluetooth camcorder and got lots of pictures and some video.

So sad that VidCon 2011 is over. Wonder if I will go back in 2012?

There are pros and cons to next year. It will be held at the convention center in Anaheim instead of the Hyatt Regency in Los Angeles. This makes room for even more people (I think they will have 6000 tickets available for sale) and a couple cons are that all the YouTubers will be spread out through 5 or more surrounding hotels meaning less chance to run into the big YT'ers. Sad. Also more people means less one on one time and more waiting in line to do "meet and greets". Not as personal. So, we'll see. Could be good but I have a feeling it wont be as good as the first VidCon. Even with this year's VidCon they had 2500 people compared to last years...1000? I am not sure on the number of people who attended last year but I could tell a difference this year. I saw lots of YouTubers in passing which was cool ("Fred" , DeStorm and Barats & Bereta , Kareem, just to name a few) but didnt get a chance to get a picture with them or if they did meet and greets, I missed it because that happened Friday and I came Friday night. Totally regret that. If I go next year - I'm leaving Wed or Thurs night so I dont miss so much!

Pinkberry!

2011-07-29T09:49:00.000-07:00

Kate with her Pinkberry

me with mine - chocolate and coconut froyo with as many toppings as you want that would fit in the cup. So I picked strawberries, coconut and milk chocolate shavings

The group that came to meet up at Pinkberry, L-R: Emily & Chase, Billy ,me, Kate and Bridget. Super fun to see everyone...I was up at camp with Emily, Chase and Kate but I have not seen Bridget for a long time and Billy, well, we are online friends, he is a cop and lives in Sac and so I invited him to come because I know he likes Pinkberry & he was able to make it! Super nice guy. So fun to meet. Thanks everyone for coming out for a fun evening in Davis!

Shaun Barrowe's Music Video Taping

2011-07-13T15:17:00.000-07:00

I dont know if any of you remember Shaun Barrowe's who was on American Idol a few seasons ago. He made it into the top 10 I believe and has now launched a career himself. A few weeks ago I heard about the opportunity to go down to Orem and be in one of his upcoming music videos. Laura & Rocky were able to come and after some failed Google Map directions, we finally found the house where they were filming.

We worked for about 2 hours with all the shots they needed for the video. Got to see Lindsay Sterling (finalist on America's Got Talent) and Kat Gallegos (local model and I think she has been in some movies). It was a really fun experience, I'm glad we got to go and sorry to all those who missed out! You know who you are.

Here's the finished product which premiered the end of June but sadly we werent able to go.

Live For Music

Can you see me? Laura? Rocky?

If you want to watch Shaun Barrowe's other videos, that might be a good idea because this "Live For Music" one has a bunch of clips from the other videos in the series.

Blurbs from June

2011-07-08T12:16:00.000-07:00

Some updates on what went on in June..I know I posted quite a few things and there are more things to post but here are some 'small' things that we did and pictures from it all..

Went to my friend Becca's baby shower - I knew nobody there but it was fun to mingle, eat a few treats, check out the cute baby boy gifts she got and of course, visit with her! I havent seen her since I moved to Utah so it was really nice.

After volunteering for Extreme Home Makeover, I took a pic of this cool tree, so bright, on the way home with Celeste and Bonnie.

Tony, Celeste and I went to go see the band Parachute perform in SLC one evening. I had barely found out about the band online somehow, saw they were having a free show a few nights later and I really wanted to go after listening to their CD nonstop. Convinced Tony to come along and it was such a fun evening, weather was great despite a few drops of rain towards the end of the show.

Tried some new food at KRico for Tony's birthday , where they gave him a complimentary dinner! SO NICE! It was a pretty good dish but I think I prefer my Lomo Saltado ;-)

Wedding reception for our friend Marc. Fun evening, we ended up staying quite awhile.

This is a sneak pic I took from my upstairs bedroom window. Umm yea. I hate this neighborhood. WAY too many unsupervised kids. At least there are a couple adults in this picture. I swear the building next to me has like 10 kids under the age of 10 that live there. This is the ghetto ice cream truck that probably sells more than just ice cream, parked right in front of our house. Gosh! How about pick any other place on the street but here?!

Other things...had a couple garage sales, went to a few wedding receptions of friends, spoke in our ward at church, had our final reception in Idaho, got a new tv, got new tires for my car (ouch) , I drove the next day all the way to Arizona where I stayed with my friend Candace...

....worked all week out of the office which was AWESOME and visited with lots of friends every night (there will be an AZ post coming up, I cant get ahead of myself now, can I?)

Stay tuned for more posts shortly!

Extreme Home Makeover

2011-06-29T15:31:00.000-07:00

So in case you didnt hear about it, the show Extreme Home Makeover has been in Utah, about 15 min from where I live, in a community of homes called Daybreak, building a home for a family. I got to volunteer to help on the Saturday before I left to go to AZ for the week. SO glad I got to help out for at least one day! It was pretty fun and neat to see how fast the house was being built and the progress being made. Here are some pictures from the day I went to volunteer:

Ready!

We sat under this tent until they called us to come do some work

Me, Celeste and Bonnie with our cool shirts!

Side view of the house being worked on...a piece of the roof going on

We got to go down to the basement and remove wood scraps and other house building trash. In this picture the guys are doing wiring. In between those ladders was a bunch of junk on the floor and our team of 6 took care of all that, plus removing trash from other rooms in the basement area

Bonnie walking the plank after working for awhile in the basement!

Getting ready to film a part of the show which will air in six months. So long!

We got to meet Michael Maloney , one of the designers!

Everyone got to yell "Move that bus!" today (Wednesday) actually because they finished a day ahead of schedule and the family got to come home today instead of Thursday. Pretty cool. Wish I could have been there for that.

They also had a huge benefit concert last night with Alex Boye', Thurl Bailey and others performing to raise money for the family.

Watch the show in...the fall sometime...cant wait to see it air!

Couponing Trip

2011-06-21T13:37:00.000-07:00

Okay! I went to Walmart in Utah County on June 13th so that my friend Lindsay & I could check out at midnight and get our coupons doubled. She invited me to go and I had a bunch of coupons I thought I could use so away we went! We drove about 1/2 hour to get to this particular Walmart.

When we arrived, it was pretty mind boggling what we saw. I wish I had taken pictures. A group of people already had their carts stacked high with multiple items of the same category. I only had 1 coupon per item! We got there about 1030pm at night and the shelves were mostly cleared.

To read a better blog post about what went down, check out Lindsay's blog for more details. Below is what I got that is listed in the picture and what I paid for it:

Bounty Towels $4.97 (12 pack not pictured actually)

Hawaiian Rolls $0.50

Lip Balm $0.25

Cake Mix & Frosting $1.59

Mini pepperoni $1.53

Ketchup $0.48

Yo plait Yogurt FREE

Lunch-meat $0.88

Baby Wipes $0.47

Vinegar $0.03

Butter $0.53

Stay-free Pads $1.86

Band-aids - I made $0.03

Candy Bars FREE (I got 4 but ate one)

Tic Tacs $0.04

Crystal Light $1.48

Walmart doesn't tell you your savings but I got all of the above for: $14.64

We did a price match to get the grapes (not pictured) for cheaper.

There were a lot of things I wanted to get that were totally cleared off the shelves. And some things I had coupons for, it would be a better deal at another store.

SLC Summer Crew

2011-06-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

So some of you may or maybe not know that I was chosen (out of I dont know how many applicants) to be in a SLC Summer Crew where we get challenges every week. We write about what we did, tweet about it & post it on Facebook. We can also blog about it. To be honest I'm not a huge fan of SLC or Utah in general (except I do love southern Utah) so hopefully being in this crew will help me change my views on SLC at least.

The first challenge was to go to Thanksgiving Point. There is a lot of sections at TP but we chose to go to the Dinosaur Museum, its something Tony has always wanted to check out. It was pretty interesting, I think little kids would enjoy it a lot. There is a lot of hands on stuff to do.

The second challenge was to go on a hike somewhere but since we have a little less than a week to do this and my favorite hike is in Bryce Canyon (not able to go there after work because it takes a few hours to get there) then instead, Tony took me to one of his favorite parks

Check out my bio here and stay tuned for more adventures around SLC this summer!

One Month Anniversary!

2011-06-12T16:35:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe Tony & I have been married a month already. Well, not too hard to believe , we have been together for so long!

Tony surprised me by getting off work early that day to spend the last bit of my work day with me. So sweet! Then we went to eat at a steakhouse where we had donated some clothes to them a few days earlier. Thanks to my friend Aimee for telling me about it. In exchange for donating clothes we got a gift certificate to go eat there. I cant find the picture we ate of our delicious food but it was steak with some vegetables and a couple small loaves of bread.

Next we went back to the hospital so Tony could get x-rays of his hand.

Pretty interesting to see!

Then we went to look at TV's at Best Buy, they closed in about 5 minutes but werent in a hurry to kick anyone out of the store which was nice. Then we went to Cold Stone to share some ice cream. It's one of Tony's favorite places to go but somehow we never make it there. Luckily we were able to go on this anniversary celebration evening.

I love you so much Tony & cant wait for more anniversaries to come!

Horseshoe Bend

2011-06-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

The drive - this is up in Northern AZ, almost to Page. Probably about....20 min or so away I'd say. the mountain rocks were split barely so that a road could go through. Pretty neat.

BEST STOP on a road trip ever. Seriously. This is right outside of Page, AZ. Horseshoe Bend.

Behind me is an amazing site but you have to get closer to see what is below that is so great.

I couldnt stop staring.

Isnt it so beautiful? Yes, I took this picture.

It's less than a mile to walk from the parking lot over rocks and through some sand. Not a hard hike at all!

Some cuties from Quebec took a picture of my sister and I. There were quite a few people there, maybe 25 or so? Taking pictures and posing. Some had huge fancy photography cameras and others had simple ones. I definitely want to go here again and hopefully it can be with Tony next time.

Arizona-Mexico Weekend Part 2

2011-06-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

I've never used my passport before and I figured Mexico would be the closest and easiest place to break it in. So on Saturday my sister and I met up with Celeste and Chris at the Waffle House in Chandler where we had some breakfast and headed out. Chris drove my car and the rest of us watched Nacho Libre on his phone to get in the mood. We got pulled over on the way for speeding but luckily the cop let us go.

Funny that Harold Camp "predicted" the end of the world to be this very day and the painting on the side of this building when I got out to get insurance for Mexico says "End of the World" Too funny!

Had to stop here and get a stamp for our passport book and take a couple pictures at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. A place Tony & I have down to go to someday but didnt make it there when I lived in Arizona.

We ate here for lunch. This is my 2nd time going here and its been delicious each time. I'm so glad Chris drove and knew where to go! We all enjoyed our tacos and then decided to do a little shopping.

Some random pictures , there was a cool store called Candy Cake but sadly it was all closed :( The statue we saw shortly after crossing the border. I dont know who it is. We all got bracelets with our names on them. Note for next time: get them made on the beach , Laura spent $3 on hers while Celeste and I paid $5 for ours at a shop!

Checking out the view of the ocean before actually heading to the beach.

So happy to be at the beach! The water was not cold at all. If we had gotten there a few hours earlier I probably would have gone in all the way. The sand did not have much broken glass like I was told there would be. Celeste and I got henna tattoos.

My friend Chris took these pictures. Looks fun and a little scary when it got so low to the water and people.

Thanks to Chris for taking these pictures. We all had a super great time hanging out til the sun went down!

We all ended up getting our hair braided on the beach. I've always wanted my hair done like this! My only regret was not getting my whole head done. The lady did a good job and did all our hairs 3 for $20 which was better than the deal Celeste and I had originally of 2 for $16. We added Laura for a few extra dollars.

We debated just getting a hotel and staying the night but good thing we didnt because we all had our phones in airplane mode so we didnt get charged for calls or texts and Celeste's family was freaking out that they didnt hear from her and they thought she was lost in Mexico or something. It was funny to us to hear and read all the texts on the way home when we got reception again but I'm sure Celeste's family didnt think it was too funny.

Sunset in the background.

We left Mexico around 10? 1030? So much for making it back to Goodwill for their 50% off sale which I was a little bummed about. Going back across the border we all showed our passports and we were good to go. We were the only car leaving which was nice, we didnt have a long wait nor did we have little kids trying to sell us gum and tortillas as we left. Luckily no cops pulled us over on the way home. It was a GREAT trip and a super huge thanks to Chris for his mad driving skills It was a good way to leave the area as on Sunday around 1230 , Laura & I left to head back to Utah.