This makes me giggle

Tom Cruise on home teaching

Coast to Coast

I had such a crazy/fun week. It started two Fridays ago in California at Tim's house. Tim drove up with his sister Melanie and me to spend a couple days with his family before he had to go back to school. We were able to spend all day Saturday with Tim's whole family minus his little brother Aaron who is in Samoa for a mission. Tim's brother and sister-in-law were there with their energy-filled, four boys. We swam and had a bbq at his house and it was a beautiful day. Sunday, Tim flew home and left me to fend for myself. It was the first time I had stayed at his parent's house without him, I was kind of nervous about it but I ended up having a really good time.

Monday marked the beginning of the (third?) annual girls trip that Tim's Grandma Gunn puts on every year. This year it was held at the Hales' beautiful beach house in San Juan Capistrano. The trip was from Monday-Thursday morning, but I had to take off early Wednesday morning to go to New Orleans for work. The house was AMAZING and it had its own private beach. I forgot to take a picture of the house but here's the view from the porch.

It was such a relaxing few days at the beach. I laid out and read my book for 3-4 hours both days. I also went on a bike ride with Autumn (which I am mysteriously still sore from), took a good walk by the beach, ate yummy yummy food provided by the mommies and aunts, and did a morning Zumba workout (led by Autumn). It was my first time trying zumba and it was pretty fun!

The Amazing Grandma Gunn

I was sad I had to leave early. I had such a nice time and was definitely needing some sun!

I got in to New Orleans around 4 on Wednesday. I was there for the NAA Education Conference and Expo. My company had a booth at the trade show that I had to help with. Pretty much ever since I started working there (about 2 months ago) I have been preparing for this trade show. Before I left for California I tried to make sure I confirmed all of the previous reservations I had made for New Orleans, but I had forgotten one. I had planned an activity for all of the sales and marketing people to go on Wednesday night. We were going to go airboating in the bayou and the van was going to pick us up at the hotel at 5. Right when I got off the plane I remembered and called the airboat place to confirm our reservation. Just my luck ,they had no record of our reservation even though our accountant had given them our credit card number. With the help of Tim feeding me phone numbers of other places that did airboat tours, I was able to scramble and find another place that would take 16 people out at night. Crisis averted. The tour was awesome and our captain/tour guide was crazy! I have some video footage of the whole thing at work, I will try to post some later if I can. Here are some pictures for now!

Our hard-to-understand Captain--he's been on Wife Swap. Check it out: http://www.movieweb.com/tv/TEgN1jgjpeYmjj/VInPSoosytmmro

Sales and marketing teams enjoying the swamp

The trade show started on Thursday. It was cool to see everything I had been helping with fall into place. There were hundreds of other booths, anyone who had anything to do with apartment rentals was there.

Our beautiful booth I helped design:)

Our super cool uniforms

Every year they have a keynote speaker and this year it was George W. Bush. Camera's weren't allowed, so sorry, no pictures. But I just have to say that I love George. Ever since he came to Albuquerque 5 1/2 years ago when I helped lead "4 more years" cheers with my friends Melissa and Strobbe. He gave a great speech and was very funny!

Thursday night we went to the Gala (party) at Mardi Gras world. It's the place they keep all of the floats for the Mardi Gras parade and it's right on the Mississippi, so the location was great. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy was playing and we hired professional lindy-hop dancers to wear our uniforms (see above) and dance at the party. I HAVE to remember to post a video of this because they were awesome! The party got out late and we were all hungry because they only served finger foods and alcohol at the party, so we went out to eat. The night ended with a bunch of us driving around, looking for dinner in a huge 12 passenger van with one of our drunk clients (and his father) who kept wanting to pick up his friends off of corners, making it 16 people in the van. Needless to say, I didn't get home til very late.

Friday was the last day of the trade show. I spent half of it on the floor and the other half with the photographer I had hired to take pictures of our clients for our website. I spent about 5 hours with the photographer and there was a lot of down time, so I got to know him pretty well. His name was Brad Edelman and he played 9 years for the New Orleans Saints. He was a really nice guy and gave me a couple recommendations for restaurants and told me if I needed help finding anything I could give him a call. I ended up going out that night with the girls I work with and we tried to go to one of the restaurants Brad told me about but it was full for the night, and just about every good restaurant was full because it was Friday. I ended up giving Brad a call who ended up just living about a block from where we were. We went over and met him and he practically gave us a walking tour all through the French Quarter and Jackson Square before he found us a restaurant that had seating and was to our liking. Kind of bizarre, but fun! We ate at a place called Muriels and the food was fantastic, French/Creole. I had a yummy goat cheese crepes with craw fish appetizer and pecan crusted puppy drum for my main course--best fish I have EVER tasted! After, we walked a little on Bourbon St. That place is crazy, didn't want to spend too much time there.

My Yummy Appetizer

Blurry picture of Bourbon St.

I was sad to leave, but by that time it had been 7 days since I had seen Tim, and I was ready to go home. I definitely recommend going to New Orleans if you get the chance! I would love to go back.

No Bueno Blogging

The small circle of blogs I follow are very similar to mine in that most of them aren't frequently updated, so I don't think I need to do the whole "Oh my, it's been forever since my last blog" because you all should be use to it by now!

Blogging isn't so fun anymore--it feels like a chore. Most likely because my new job entails keeping the company blog updated. At least I didn't have to do any research before writing this :)

We've done a couple things since our last blog. I turned 22 which sounds so much older than 21. I was recently informed that 25 is the ideal age because you are still young but it is the age that people start taking you seriously. So I guess I'm not old enough to be taken seriously, but I am really enjoying this stage of life Tim and I are in. I had a wonderful birthday. We went to Harvest at Thanksgiving Point for the first time...sooo yummy! Tim also made me a fabulous birthday cake (2 years in a row!)

Boston Cream Pie Cake :)

He also made me a caprese salad for my bday lunch which is one of my faves!

Tim and I finally took our honeymoon. We went on a 7-day cruise through the Mexican Riviera. We stopped at Puerta Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo. It was such a nice break from busy schedules of work and school. The best part was getting to spend seven whole days attached to my husband's hip. We literally spent every second together and it was so great for us. I really felt like it made us closer. Just to summarize it, we went to bed at about 10:30 every night, woke up at 9, took a two-hour nap EVERY day, sun-bathed and ate tons of yummy food. On the days we got off the boat we explored the cities, shopped, ate more yummy food and looked for a Mexican mermaid idol to add to Tim's sister, Megan's, collection haha :) In Mazatlan we took a salsa making class. We also learned how to make margaritas and salsa dance. It was a seriously hilarious activity. Most of the people there had drank so much tequila that they really struggled with the salsa dancing afterwards. Cabo was our favorite. Absolutely beautiful there--very clean!

Tim playing mini-golf on the boat at the Puerto Vallarta port

Mashing up some guac in Mazatlan

Beautiful Cabo San Lucas

Other good news, I FINALLY found an internship after 5 months of searching. It was absolutely worth the wait though. My internship has been such a great opportunity and I'm learning so much. I am doing PR/marketing/whatever random thing they need me to do, for a company that makes property management software. I'm super stressed and sometimes confused, but I am really enjoying myself.

Tim is back in school and working so hard. I'm a little sad he's so busy, but I know he loves it so I'm happy. He is almost done with spring semester and on track to get all A's! Tim and I will be taking a quick trip to his family's home in California next week. Tim will only be staying a day and a half. I'm staying a couple more days to go on the "Girl's only trip" with all of the wonderful women in his family! I'm really excited to get to spend some more time with Tim's sister's Megan and Autumn--who I barely ever get to see, and meet Tim's new nephew (he's only two months old so he's allowed to come with the girls).

I am currently the only person awake at the slumber party being held at my house right now. My nieces are spending the night and Tim is passed out on the other side of the couch. It was a nice evening though. We had pizza and ice cream sundays! We painted nails and watched Veggies Tales (Emma's choice). Tomorrow we will have sugar cereal and eggs for breakfast haha! I am told this is what the girls like! We watched a movie with our new friends, Syrell and Tate, after the girls fell asleep. They have lived across the street from us forever, but we have just recently realized how fun they are!

It is very late now and I am pretty sure I will be woken up early tomorrow! I'm going to wait to post this til tomorrow when I can put pictures up! Hope everyone is doing well! Love you!

It's still March

We have been pretty lame at making consistent new posts, but we have managed to write one every month since we started our blog, and we just realized it's an hour and a half til April!

A lot has happened since our last post...

1. The first that comes to mind (that we can remember) was getting to see all of our family towards the end of February. We were so happy to see everyone and it was such a special time to have almost all of our family here at the same time.

2. We bought tickets to go on a cruise! This was somewhat of an anniversary/first real honeymoon present to ourselves since we did a mid-semester wedding and only had two days to honeymoon...in Park City--yea we don't think it counts either. We are going in just two weeks and are starting to get really excited. We might need to fake bake so we aren't super white.

3. We signed up to be camp counselors at a summer camp for kids who have a parent with cancer called Camp Kesem. It is not until the end of August, but we have been going to counselor trainings and learning cool camp songs. One is about milk and you use each other's thumbs to pretend you're milking a cow. We had to come up with camp nicknames for the kids to call us; Tim's is Optimus (in honor of his nephews being big transformer fans) and mine is Pancakes (in memory of our precious kitty pet from last summer). 4. We got new carpet! Yay! Our carpet wasn't bad at all before, but Jean (the lady upstairs) is constantly remodeling. I'm thinking she is almost out of things to do--she has re-carpeted, redone the bathrooms, got new furniture, new marble counter tops in kitchen and bathrooms, painted, and I re-varnished her cabinets. That reminds me, I have unintentionally started a cabinet refinishing business. I sanded down and re-varnished all of Jean's kitchen cabinets, and then Peggy-the lady across the street wanted me to paint her cabinets--which I am almost finished with, and this weekend I will most likely be helping my friend, who just bought a new home, paint her cabinets. I feel like I'm getting kind of good at it.

5. Tim has been working at R.C. Willey for 6 months which means...DISCOUNT! Our place was mostly furnished when we moved in, so we never bought any furniture. Well we just bought lots--well to me it seem like lots. We got a beautiful sectional, a TV stand, a new mattress, a tree plant, and a pretty crib and baby dresser/changer--DISCLAIMER: We are not pregnant, and do not plan on being so anytime soon, but Tim thought it would be good to get all that stuff while we could get it cheap. Here is a picture of our first couch.
Tim took this of me mid-blogging. I asked him to so I could post the couch. Now that we have some new stuff it really has me in the mood to decorate. My birthday is in 6 days and I asked Tim if I could buy more decorations for my present. If you have any tips, send them our way. Goodbye until April.

Anniversatines Day!

I was just about to blog and I got a text from from my friend Krystina asking how my anniversatines day was. Valentine's Day was our one year anniversary! When we were engaged and people would ask when we were getting married we would sheepishly answer,"Valentine's Day". Our reason for doing that day was because it was the Saturday on President's day weekend, and we made sure to explain that to everyone so they wouldn't think we were corny. Whenever we would tell anyone there were similar reactions 1) "Awwww how cute", 2) "You won't have to worry about forgetting your anniversary", and 3)"Good thinking Tim, take care of two things with one present".

But since then, I've decided that I love our anniversary day being on valentine's. Stores start selling all of their valentine's goodies in January so it creates this really big exciting build-up to our anniversary. I like to believe that everybody is celebrating for us instead of doing their own thing.

Tim and I started celebrating early, loading up on lots of valentine's chocolates a couple days before. We went out on Saturday night for dinner and a movie. We ended up eating at this place in Salt Lake called The Wild Grape. I wish I had taken pictures of the food because it was so pretty, and delicious. For an appetizer we had a bread, fruit and cheese tasting. It was soooo good. Tim got a bison steak and I had salmon. Anyone who knows me knows that tastey food is the best present you can give me! Speaking of presents, Tim got me this really pretty Mediterranean painting which is HUGE and now on our bedroom wall.I got him a football xbox game! haha. It's what he wanted, okay?! Anyway, we had a great night and we ate some more chocolates on Sunday to celebrate our real anniversary. We have had so much fun being newlyweds and we're excited for the many years ahead of us.

Besides that, Tim's and my life have been about the same. Tim is still working hard and I'm trying to finish school. We have a lot of family coming to visit in about a week and we're excited to see everyone.

I don't like January

I know it's a negative title, but its true--and I think most people will agree with me that January is the longest most unmagical month of the year. I don't even know why I'm writing about it because it's putting me in a bad mood.

I have nothing to do and that is probably contributing to me not liking this time of year. I am taking two Communication classes this semester. I only have class twice a week (on Tuesday and Wednesday night). My work at BYUB has been nonexistent for the past three weeks, but it will pick back up towards the end of this week. I have been trying to find another part time or full time job to cure my idleness.

Tim is still working full time at R.C. Willey. He will be taking some independent study classes this semester so he can keep working. I feel like I look forward all day to his lunch breaks and when he comes home. I have become OCD with our bathroom for some reason, particularly the counter, I wipe it down after every time Tim or I use it...interesting I KNOW! I need a hobby.

I tried to be productive this last Saturday. I spent the day with my sister, Sarah, who let me barrow her sewing machine. I had this vision in my mind of a skirt I thought I could make, and it came out almost as darling as I imagined--which never happens! January miracle.

I made Timothy take a picture when I wore it to church on Sunday.

Notice the careful detail taken haha. This was seriously the easiest thing to make, and I still messed up on it. I used an elastic band for the waist band and somehow thought it would stay stretchy if I sewed fabric to it. I was wrong. I need to add a zipper...until then, Tim will have to help me put it on and take it off over my head :)

We bought a scooter! Tim has wanted one since we got married and I've been resisting. I finally decided it would be a good thing to have. We bought a silver and black phantom...if that means anything to anyone. I would post a picture but I don't want to go out into the cold to take one. But I will post this!

He is my special boy. Not to embarrass him, but he wears this like all the time. Sometimes he will walk into the kitchen wearing it and get something to eat. I had him put it on right before I started writing this post to take a picture and he kept it on for the next 30 minutes while he played football on xbox. I love him.

Holiday Goodies!

It is Monday and Tim and I are so happy that Christmas is this week. When Tim started working at R.C. Willey (back in September) we realized that we would not be able to visit either of our families for Christmas because R.C Willey doesn't believe in Christmas or visiting families. We came to terms with having our first Christmas with just each other and made plans with our good friends Kevin and Krystina (who were also planning on staying in Provo for Christmas) to celebrate Christmas together. This was the plan until K&K told us their parents surprised them with tickets to fly them out to California for Christmas. Tim and I felt bad for ourselves until we realized that Christmas was on a Friday!!! Tim doesn't work on Thursdays and gets off work at 6 on Wednesdays so we will leave Wednesday night, drive to Grandma Carol's house in St. George, then drive to Tim's parents house Thursday morning! It's so perfect, right? We have to leave late Christmas night to drive back to Grandma Carol's so that we can be back in time for Tim to work at 1 pm on Saturday.

When we thought we were going to celebrate Christmas with K&K, I decided I was going to make Christmas as wonderful as possible to distract myself from the lack of family. And to make things wonderful, I cook and eat! So I decided what could be more wonderful than precious Cornish hens?! I went out and bought Cornish hens and they are so cute and tiny! After the change of Christmas plans, we decided to have our special dinner last night (Sunday). I took Rachel Ray's advice and basted the little chickies with balsamic vinegar and orange juice. They were tasty and I wanted to take a picture of them but I forgot with all my other hostess duties! Dessert was Drama. I wanted to make an easy orange flavored angel food cake but by some horrible bad luck, Tim and I checked three grocery stores and couldn't find a single angel food cake mix. In the words of my dear friend Melissa, "Coincidence? I think so." I had already bought several oranges so I wanted to do some sort of orange dessert. I got on Foodnetwork.com and typed in orange chocolate cake and spotted the most glorious cake. I began reading the recipe and I for some awful reason the measurements were set for 150 servings! Holy Cow! I had to divide everything by 8. And it wasn't as simple as it sounds. The measurements were in pounds and ounces. I realized I am totally uneducated when it comes to converting cooking measurements. I spent the next hour on google typing in "cups in pounds", "ounces in cups", "teaspoons in tablespoons". Tim went to bed.

Tim helped me make the cake Sunday morning before church and it was quite a process. Here is a picture of the finished product. It doesn't look quite as glorious as the one on Food Network but I think they used fondant and they're chefs. The cake has two chocolate cake layers with an orange cake layer in the middle. In between the cake there are thin layers of chocolate ganache, and I iced it with an orange butter cream frosting yum. It was super rich!

Dinner was fun and Tim set up our new computer that I had been making him wait to open-it was suppose to be for Christmas! While he was working on that, I watched Iron Chef and dreamed of going to culinary school.