Of all the things to blog about after a long absence...

Ok, I have a number of things I have failed to record on this here blog, mainly our amazing trip to Hawaii. If any of you are friends with Katie Tengelsen just read her post about it, same thing. I also have 2 weddings, a family reunion, a family trip, and Disneyland. But no, what am I going to chose to do a quick post about?

That I am very bad at cooking. Baking specifically. I tried to make some cookies today, a first in a LONG LONG time, and they were a disaster. I followed a recipe (accidentally) that includes oatmeal and then when it came to the oatmeal I just didn't include it. Once I was "done" with the dough it occurred to me that leaving out the oats is not okay, and realized that in a regular recipe I needed a lot more flour. So, anyway, no good, plus I tried to bake them such that they wouldn't be burned (which is always the case) and instead it was the opposite extreme, too mushy. And I know they really were bad because we ate some and I said "well these aren't very good" and my wonderfully honest husband just patted my leg and said "good try dear." So yeah. I give up. One day Chris will make millions and I will just hire a chef slash baker.

Also, I will try to blog about those better things soon, sorry!!!!

The Picture Posts...

Ok as promised, the posts that required pictures...

First, Ode to my Phone.

So I had a phone from high school through Freshman year of college. Throughout Freshman year it began to break more and more. At one point the top (it was a flip phone) was actually completely apart from the bottom half hanging by one wire still connecting it and keeping it working. One day at the end of Winter semester it got knocked off a couch and completely broke into 2 pieces. It was a day of mourning. But I eventually got another phone. Another flip phone, whatever was the free one they were doing at that point when you signed another contract. So, this phone I have from May 2006 until about December 2010. It began to decline in the exact same way as this first phone, how does this keep happening? Top apart from the bottom except for the one wire. This time, I went to slip it into my vest pocket only to not make it inside the pocket, let go, and watch it fall to its death where it did in fact again split into the two pieces.

However!

This second phone has a happier ending. See my phone in this downward spiral I began to look for another one, the exact same model. I seriously love this phone so much. None of this fancy technology, touch screen whatever. Leave that to Chris. I just like my ghetto phone that they don't even manufacture anymore. But I stumbled across some luck, a co-worker commented that they had had the same phone at one point and probably still had it. I asked them if they could look and if so I would buy it from them. I was going to buy it for $20, but it was my birthday so I ended up getting it for free :) So as soon as my phone broke I was up and running again and it was like it had never left my side! Other than all my pictures being gone, and the romantic texts I had locked and saved from Chris since December 2006 :( I still have it hoping the store can save them....we will see.

The old (in 2 pieces) and the new.

Next..lets go with new hair cut.

I needed a hair cut but was also feeling kind of blah. My whole life I have been pretty adventurous with my hair and I had had the same hair cut for almost a year now. But, I like it, I just wanted to Jazz it up a bit. So...


Straight Bangs!! I look kind of crazy in this...oh well. Also I just took this and its at the end of a day so they don't look as good. But if I waited to post this till I remembered to take a picture of them in the morning I would probably never post it. Anyway, so same hair cut (shorter in the back, lots of layers, sight a-line) but with cool bangs. I have gotten a positive response from people on them. I like them. They are more high maintenance, but I am trying to look nicer so its good motivation to actually do my hair every day :) or...almost every day, I still wear a beanie or head band now and then!

Lastly, the bathroom. This is actually really sad. I took before pictures which some how did not actually save to my camera. So its not nearly as cool, and in fact any one who didn't previously know what it will look like probably won't be able to appreciate it at all. But, Katie Tengelsen, this one is for you:



So, these nice white walls/ceiling are in my bathroom. What previously used to adorn these was black mold. Pretty bad. AH I WISH I HAD THE PICTURES. I am pretty sure it was there when I moved it and just worse, though I couldn't see it getting worse really. Every time I thought about cleaning it I would get horrible anxiety so I just kept ignoring it. All you clean freaks out there, don't hate on me. I know it was bad. Whatever. I have a neighbor who is quite clean, and also good at cleaning, and more importantly very very nice :) She found out about my bathroom situation and began to ask me every weekend if we wanted to clean my bathroom together. Finally one day I had no excuses. We two cleaned together non stop for 2 hours. But, in the end it looked like a brand new bathroom! In these pictures the mold was completely covering above the door and the window, going on most of ceiling especially around this fan thing in the middle. But now it looks amazing. Chris came home and casually said it looked good and then I mentioned how incredible it was that the mold was gone he had to do a double take. Then he was really excited! He hadn't even bothered to look up because he assumed I had just skipped that part again. So Katie, I finally did it. With a lot of help. But, did it nonetheless :)

BE PROUD OF ME!!!!

Sneak Peak...Get Excited...

So, these are the following things that I need to blog about, and will soon (I am out of town this weekend so I will commit to doing it by the next Sunday, March 13th):

Ode to my cell phone, which broke, and how I got a new one and by new I mean the same one (need pics for this)

Cleaning my Bathroom (again, I need to get the pics off my camera for this one)

Hair Cut (as of today, straight bangs! and the pics are needed)

And this is what I can actually post because I don't need a picture....

WE ARE GOING TO HAWAII!!!!

I can't believe it, I am so excited. Here is the story.

I dragged Chris to one of those listen to my sales pitch get a trip things. Turned out it wasn't for a time share so it wasn't just a free night in some nice hotel. They are a travel club so they offered some vacation packages for us to choose from at very discounted prices. So we picked 8 days 7 nights in one of their locations, 1 bedroom place, for $129. For the entire week. So, we have to fly ourselves there, pay for food and entertainment, but still the room was basically free which is usually the worst cost.

We could pick whatever week we wanted to go within their non-peak seasons, and had to give 2 location options and they would pick one. We gave them Hawaii and Orlando for the last full week of May (Friday 20th - Friday 27th). A few days later they called and said we were #3 for Orlando and #2 for Hawaii. A few days after that we got an offer to go to Hawaii! But, no 1 bedrooms were available, we had to do a 2 bedroom for an additional $275 (so $404) for the week. We had to decide and commit within 24 hours. At first I was bummed because I didn't want to pay more and we didn't need 2 rooms. But, we decided that a week in Hawaii for $400 was still a great deal so we took it. We then started thinking, maybe we could invite someone to go with us and split the cost. And so we called our friends, they thought about it, had to finagle getting out of a week-long conference for his PhD the same week, but in the end it all worked out and they said yes! YEA!!!! We are going with two of our favorite people, Dan and Katie, and are each only paying $200 for a week in a nice, pretty big, condo in what looks like a beautiful resort. Additional good detail is that its a condo, not a hotel, so it has a fully equipped kitchen so we can buy groceries and cook most meals/pack lunches instead of having to buy 3 meals a day.

I AM JUST SO EXCITED!!!!

Then, a miracle happened. We now start looking for tickets, Salt Lake SUCKS. Flights are just way more expensive from here (example: round trip $750 from SLC versus $550 from Vegas which STOPS IN SALT LAKE! what the heck). So, now we start thinking we will drive to Vegas, leave our car at a friends house, and go from there. I dilly dally, I hate finding out later I could have gotten a better deal but don't want to wait too long. Basically, I am actually really bad at planning trips believe it or not when purchasing expensive stuff is involved. I am also debating, do I want to sign up for the credit card, get the miles, combine them with some I already have and some of Chris's and buy 1 ticket that way...ah! Eventually of course, Vegas goes up and SLC is now even worse and I am so sad.

Then, the thought comes to me (we all know from where) check Hawaiian Airlines going out of LA. I had already looked at this before but it was just as expensive as Salt Lake, so why drive all the way down there. Well, might as well check one more time since Vegas isn't that great any more anyway. And what do I find? On the days we need to travel, a few select times have gone down in price, and by down I mean from $400 one way to $175 one way. And, they just happene to be the EXACT times we need. So, we bought round trip from LA tickets for $430!!! I cannot believe it. Its amazing. How did this happen? Again, we all know. Moreover, I checked back a few days later and they were right back up to the $400 one way. Even with gas this will still be cheaper than the good Vegas deal would have been.

LA works out perfect anyway because its more covenient to leave our car at my house instead of a "friend" in Vegas. And, my little sister will probably have her Senior Vocal recital that weekend too so we will already be down there, and its the 3 day weekend so we have time to get back to UT.

So our place is in Kauai and we will be there for the week. But, what is also cool is that once we check out Friday morning the 27th, Dan has family who live in Honolulu somewhere (Maui? I think...) so we will then take a cheap one way over there, spend all day Friday and Saturday in Maui and crash there for free. AMAZING!!! This is going to be so great. I am not trying to brag, but we are just so excited. And to be honest, the more we think about going with Dan and Katie the more excited we are to go and that they will be there! Dan, just remember, this is a VACATION :)

We haven't had a real vacation that isn't visiting family since our honeymoon (3 years) and Chris will have just finished his first year of a masters, Dan his first year of a PhD, and Katie all of her masters and an internship. So everyone will be in need of some good R&R. I guess not me, but I will never say no to lazing aroud just about anywhere, haha!!

Hawaii, here we come! If any of you have been to either of these islands give me ideas of what to do or where to eat!

Snowy Shenanigans and other Christmas Stuff

One night in December we got home around midnight from hanging out with some friends who were in town for the holidays. It started snowing while we were there, and by the time we arrived at our own apartment there was an awesome blanket of untouched snow on our front yard, at least 7 inches deep. We had kind of gotten our "second wind" on the way home so seeing that just made us want to play in it...right that very instant. So, we went inside, changed into some clothes more suitable to playing in the snow, and went back outside. Of course we wanted to make a snow man so we set about making the large round balls of snow. However, I am weak and the bottom one was quite large so I couldn't really help get the middle one up, and Chris couldn't do it on his own. But, a Christmas miracle occurred and we see our neighbor pull into his driveway right then! So we hailed him over to come assist, and he ended up helping us finish make our snow man for the next hour ish. He turned out quite good :)


The hair is a branch that happened to have wilted leaves on it, and all the black are rocks. I made the bug eyes that project out so far :)

A few days later we were driving home and as we pulled onto our street we saw some other neighbors building snowmen. It had snowed about 2 feet this week, and they hadn't touched their yard yet so there was a ton of snow! Chris went running but I changed and went over to their place to help. Knowing these people I should have guessed what they were building, a Nativity Scene. Their Mary and Jesus were already done and were HUGE! I have no idea how they got the top one up there. In the end I decided to make a camel, which ended up being really funny, and I went with the other girls to get a crown from Burger King down the street for a wise man's crown. We had a few people pull over and take pictures of it, I was really proud to be a part of it! Take a look.

The whole Scene (on University Avenue)
Shepherd and a sheep
The camel I made. Woot.
Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus in a manger.
Wise man!! Like the crown? :)

One of our friends happened to have all this awesome dress up stuff in her car so we were able to add those finishing touches, which definitely made it more obvious what the whole group was, haha!!

We were in California for the Christmas weekend and though it was raining down there a lot during the break it was sunny and warm Christmas day (just the way I like my Christmas's for those of you snow lovers). My youngest sister asked for Christmas for us all to make sack lunches and hand them out to homeless in downtown LA, and that was a highlight for me for sure. Making them was really fun and she and I were the ones to go and actually give them to people. The worst part is when you run out and more people are still asking for food. I am glad my sister suggested this (and again, that the weather was so awesome!).

We were then in Alaska for that 2nd week of the break and it was warmer there than in Provo! It got up to 40 degrees while were there. We mostly hung out and played a lot of games that they got for Christmas, and we were able to see some of our good friends who originate from up there as well (who are having a baby!!).

Chris turned 26. He is an old man. :)

My last story telling of December was the drive back to Utah from California. I am posting some pictures, guess which ones are CA and which ones are UT.



Obviously my even asking the question in the first place kind of gives it away, but the snowy one is going through Baker CA and the other is St. George UT, but that is what it looked like the entire UT route into Provo. Apparently the night before we left I-15 was completely closed down around that part of California to plow it, so I am glad we were not stuck on the free way during that! And it was just crazy how many cars were pulled, or crashed, on the side of the road every few hundred yards for quite a few miles. We had driven in worse so it wasn't bad, but Californian's don't know what to do, I am suprised they found snow plows somewhere :)