I LOVE FALL!

Conference Weekend

What a crazy week! Between work and school, John and I have been kept pretty busy. Casey and her friend Brittany spontaneously came to stay with us this weekend. We were so excited to have them come visit and hope they come again soon. While they were here, of course we did lots of shopping and hit up a chick flick! Saturday night we had a lively dinner with Joey, Hunter, Casey, and Brittany. We had homemade Cafe Rio burritos and the college girls even learned how to make them. They were in awe of my newlywed domestic skills the whole weekend; it was pretty funny. They both have missionaries they are waiting for, so they loved seeing a happy ending. Sunday John made us yummy crepes for breakfast while we were watching conference. He is getting pretty good at crepes; especially considering we don't have an actual crepe pan. We all just lounged in our pajamas watching conference together before we put the girls on the road. In between sessions the Parks stopped by for a quick visit. We didn't get to talk to them for long, but we are super excited because we are going to a football game with them in a few weeks! Tonight we have a pot roast in the oven (smells amazing!) and we're having Joey over for dinner. He called and said he's got bunches of laundry to do. All in all, a pretty good weekend!

Where we are NOW

Wow- So many things to catch up on. I have been a total blogger slacker, and now I hardly know where to start with an update...We have had an interesting and yet, amazing summer. Right before graduation in April, we moved to a little duplex in American Fork right up by the temple. John started working building houses with his Uncle Matt, and I took a much needed break. We planted a great little garden and started teaching a little primary class. We absolutely loved being in American Fork and had so much fun discovering new places and fun things to do. Mostly, it was just nice to get out of Provo! We especially loved the cute little movie theater in AF- aka "the sticky." We spent quite a few nights there grabbing a movie with friends. We also spent time cooling off in the fun pool at the AF rec center. Oh- and we made probably a dozen or so trips back to Idaho to see our families and do lots of boating!

During this time, I was looking for my first real job out of college-not an easy thing to find in this economy. Anyway, the plan was for us to stay in American Fork and for John to commute to Provo for school in the fall. In July- two things happened. The first is that I received a couple of job offers. Finally! I decided to take an offer with Wasatch Mental Health working in Youth Outpatient. The second is our great friends, the Harrisons, announced they were moving to Atlanta, Georgia. We were seriously bummed to see them go...but they did have a great apartment in Orem. With John going to school at BYU and me working in Provo, it only made sense for us to shorten our commute. So we packed up our stuff, said goodbye to AF and headed to "The Harrison House." Luckily, the Harrisons had been kind enough to leave behind a great garden for us. Thanks guys!

We love our new ward and our close proximity to Krispy Kreme! So for now, we're settled in with school and work and trying to enjoy the little time we get together. John goes to school around 7 am and usually comes home around 10 pm. We try to at least take a quick dinner or lunch break together once or twice a week, which just means we've been eating way too much Costa Vida. I'm working full time at Wasatch and enjoying putting to use the things I learned at BYU and in my internship. It's nice to have all that schooling finally pay off! Well, that pretty much sums things up for now...

The Stone Age

We don't have internet at our house right now. We're looking in to getting some carrier pigeons but they are extremely difficult to find this time of year!

Guilty Pleasures

Guilty pleasures. We've all got them-life's little indulgences. Don't ya just love 'em?
My Guilty Pleasures:
1. Sleeping in
2. Gilmore Girls
3. new mascara
4. Red Mango
5. Girlie magazines
6. old school rock songs
7. Twilight (oh Edward!)
8. painted toenails
9. CNN
10. Anything from Chilis

Son of a Bachelor!

OMG! I am shocked. stunned. baffled. disgusted. ( I would say that I am speechless, but seriously who am I kidding?) Who does Jason Mesnick think he is? Sure, the guy's good-looking and the whole single dad thing is truly admirable, but his qualifications for god's gift to women end there. It takes some serious moxie to play with two women's hearts for an entire season, pick one disgard the other, spend weeks being engaged, and then announce on national television (in high definition!) that he simply made a mistake! This is the Bachelor people, show a little dignity! I mean, let's be honest, as much as we LOVED Melissa did we really expect this reality TV relationship to go the distance? No. We were all waiting to stumble across their People Magazine break up cover story in the grocery aisle six months from now. But never in a million years did I think I would go down like this. Poor Melissa! I just have to say a few things about Melissa- and by doing so I'll have to admit another seriously embarassing guilty pleasure of mine, but humilation seems to be the theme for the night so what the heck! I used to watch the super lame show Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: making the squad (laugh all you want) and Melissa was one of the cheerleaders. I found her completely endearing. 1.) She reminds me of my sister- luv ya cas! 2.) Really great hair- she's shown us all just how cute rockin the ponytail can be 3.) wouldn't we all love to be that gorgeous, nice, funny, etc? Mark my words Mr. Mesnick, you really dropped the ball on this one. Big Mistake. Now I find myself completely distressed and wanting to ship all sorts of heartfelt support to Melissa in the form of Ben & Jerry's. Any thoughts on where I should ship it to? To Melissa c/o Jason & Molly Mesnick- fat chance. Guess I'll just have to send it straight on to Dallas. On second though, it'd probably just arrive in a melty, irrepairable soupy mess...kinda like Melissa's heart. Son of a Bachelor!

Super Cute Goodies!

I'm totally not one of those bloggers who's always raving about my favorite things ( I mean c'mon I'm not oprah or anything) But I LOVE decorating goodies and these were just too cute to resist! I'm even gonna try to recreate a few on my own. Check 'em out!

http://shop.thesweettoothfairy.com/main.sc

There she is...

It's that time of year again! Inauguration- nope. Valentine's Day-no. Tax season- no go. Some people call it the female Superbowl; I call it Miss America!!! I had my good friend Kristen over and we made a girl's night out of it. We had so much fun catching up and eating yummy girlie food together. It brought back such good memories (not that I'm ready to do that again. Let's just say I gave up the crown and the gym) since that's how Kristen and I met. Anyway, this year was the first time I haven't been able to completely predict things. The top 15 was a little different than what I thought it would be. I thought for sure Utah would make it- Kayla is so talented. I was starting to worry that I had lost my touch but my girl Indiana pulled it out in the end so I at least called the crown!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

It's no secret that we're pretty competitive at our house. However, we believe in competing with dignity, grace and integrity. And that is why I must announce: I WON!!! I WON!!! I WON!!! I beat John at Monopoly again. After two days, my total net worth was over $12,000. While John had compiled an impressive negative $3,000 in assetts! Basically, I kicked his little monopoly butt!

BYU Homecoming

So this weekend, my family was in town for the homecoming game. Saturday before the game, the girls went shopping (of course!) and we put together a cute little package for my sister's mission. Then we got all bundled up for the game. We've been pretty spoiled in provo; it hasn't been cold until this week. But the temperature has definitely dropped now and it officially feels like Fall! After the game, we headed over the our friends the Martinezs to carve pumpkins. Thanks so much Alex for the delicious pumpkin bread and hot chocolate- it was amazing! My pumpkin is the scary looking one on the left and I carved it without ANY help from John :-)
Oh, and just a quick shoutout to the Gibbs- we are super excited to see you guys tomorrow!