The Atkinson's

Day 6- 20 of My Favorite Things

2011-02-06T18:06:00.000-06:00

Today is Day 6 of my blog a day challenge, the topic is "20 of my Favorite Things".

How lucky are you to be invited to Jessica's Favorite Things!!!???

However unlike Oprah, I am unable to give my favorite things away.

Sorry.

But I hope you still enjoy reading about some of the things in my life that put a smile on my face.

1- my e-mealz subscription- seriously life changing!

2- new books from the library

3- gift cards

4- big toothless baby smiles

5- my new short hair

6- phone calls with my mom

7- Wheel of Fortune! I will be on that show someday

8- freshly painted toe nails

9- going overboard on Holidays- gifts, decor, food, I love it all!!

10- getting packages in the mail

11- Window shopping at places we can't afford and picking out things for when we have a house "some day"

12- scrapbook paper

13- Mac and Cheese- it's my favorite food and I am always looking for the best

14- this song

15- a great couponing trip to CVS

16- my Canon Rebel

17- Netflix

18- Skype- a lifesaver when you don't live by a single family member and you have a scrumptious baby to show off.

19- Modern Family

20- reading stories with my little bug

I could seriously go on and on but those are a few of the many things that came to mind. I guess I am pretty lucky to have so many things in my life that make me happy.

Day 5 My Favorite Quote

2011-02-05T23:46:00.005-06:00

Today is Day 5 of my blog a day challenge, the topic for today is "My Favorite Quote".

Like most people I enjoy a good quote, but I don't really have favorite quotes that I know off the top of my head. I did think about a quote that I had taped by my light switch during high school and college.

"Be believing, be happy, don't get discouraged. Things will work out."
— Gordon B. Hinckley

It is simple and sweet and what I need to hear a lot. Things do seem to work themselves out even if it is not how I envisioned it. I also like that it says to be believing and happy and if you are those things it is pretty hard to get discouraged.

Day 4- My Favorite Book

2011-02-04T22:13:00.002-06:00

Today is day 4 of my blog a day challenge. The topic is, "My Favorite Book."

This one is kind of tough but also kind of easy for me.

It's tough because I adore reading. In fact, I have read 3 books just this week. It is one of my favorite pastimes. There is nothing like picking up a book, unsure of what wonders lie on those delicious smelling pages, and being hooked from chapter one. I have spent many nights up much later than a rational person should be, kept company by the dim glow of my book light, silently turning pages so I don't wake Justin who has already been asleep for hours. When I am sucked into a great read I can't help myself, I just dive right in and don't come up for air until I absolutely must (to perform such mundane tasks like eating, bathing, and using the ladies room, none of which are near as interesting as my books). So in this sense, it is hard to pick just one book out of all the books I have read. I have so many that I love, that have made me laugh and cry. There are many that have touched my heart, taught me, frightened me, and changed me.

But on the other hand there is just one book that I have read more than 3 times. It is a book that is often referenced when people have to name that one "favorite" book. It should come as no surprise that my choice would be, "To Kill a Mockingbird."

It is in my opinion, one of the greatest books of all time. I even secretly wanted to name my daughter Scout, but Justin would never let me, and I don't know if I really could name a little girl that. Atticus Finch is one of my favorite characters in any book I have ever read, I so wish that I could meet him in real life. I have read it at many different stages of my life, and each time I take a different lesson away from it. So here's to Harper Lee, thank you for giving the world such a treasure. Your story will always have a special spot on my bookshelf.

Day 3- My favorite teacher

2011-02-03T17:02:00.007-06:00

Today is day 3 of my post a day challenge. The topic for today is "My favorite teacher."

In elementary school I always loved my teachers, maybe a little too much. I was such a teachers pet! I was always called on to help pass things out, clean things, etc... I wrote them notes and admired them and I always knew I was going to be teacher some day. I actually started at USU majoring in Elementary Ed. My path did change but my love of teachers never has.

I had some great teachers growing up but my favorite teacher was Mrs. Hageman. She was my 6th grade teacher and I just adored her. I know this is nerdy but we actually kept in touch a little bit over the years. After I moved on to middle school, my older brother worked as a janitor at the elementary school (and so did my crush at the time but I always pretended I would actually be visiting my brother) and when I would visit I always stopped by Mrs. Hageman's classroom and we would chat. After we moved away I would sometimes write her letters and I even had one of her little official school pictures (I am sure I asked her for it), and I still have it in my keepsake box somewhere. She even sent me a nice card when I got married.

So writing this makes me feel like a total lame-o for writing letters to my teacher and keeping pictures of her, but I truly loved her and admired her and she was and still is my favorite teacher. I hope she is still teaching because the world needs great teachers like her.

Day 2- My definition of Success

2011-02-02T20:16:00.000-06:00

Today is day 2 of the blog a day challenge. The topic is "My definition of Success."

At different times in my life success has meant different things to me. When I was a little girl it was getting to be the mommy when my friends and I played house, getting the best barbie to play with, or the big kahuna... getting something special that my siblings didn't get and showing it off to them. As I got a little older it was good grades, passing my drivers test on the 3rd try (so embarrassing), getting asked out on dates, and getting out of being grounded by some form of manipulation against my parents.
In my current stage of life as a new mom and adjusting to being at home most of the time, I would measure success as a shower before 2 in the afternoon, clean laundry (with a lot of help from Justin), home cooked meals, and on real fancy occasions, wearing jeans.

Today was a very successful day for me, so this post seems very fitting. Okay so I didn't get a shower but not only did the laundry get done but we had a delicious homemade dinner, Avery took some good naps, I wore makeup and jeans, I left the house to attend a class I have been excited about, and I even worked on a sample card for a class I am going to teach.

Our dinner tonight was pork chops, warm applesauce that was made from scratch, and spinach salad. It was a success and I was proud (cooking is not a strength of mine)

And seriously, looking at this girls face makes me feel like something's going right!

Day 1- Your biggest accomplishment

2011-02-01T16:16:00.004-06:00

So here it is, day one of the post a day challenge! Today the challenge is to post about your greatest accomplishment. That's easy! It was when I won a medal in my "Math Counts" math club in the 8th grade. It had a calculator on it.

Okay totally kidding. I mean that did actually happen but it is not even close to my greatest accomplishment. My greatest accomplishment would be these two...

I am still in wedded bliss with my best friend, it will be 4 years in about 2 weeks. We were sealed for all eternity in the this Temple. We recently brought into this world a perfect and beautiful baby girl. When I see these two together it makes me complete.

I am a wife to a husband I adore and a mother to tiny bundle of pure heaven and that is my greatest accomplishment.

Resurrecting this blog with a post a day challenge!

2011-01-31T15:14:00.002-06:00

Hey there, it's been a while.

Life has been crazy, but all the more reason to blog right! We were gone for an entire month from mid december to mid January. We had lots of fun family time and Justin went on a two week trip to Istanbul, Turkey on an International Studies trip for his MBA. It is so great to be back home though, and back to our normal life. I really want to be a better blogger this year and I saw my friend Emma do a post a day challenge. I thought it looked great but being away for half of January I just didn't get around to doing it. I am going to try my best to do it in February! So stay tuned for a post a day, and if anyone wants to join me, here is the list.

Day 1 - your biggest accomplishment

Day 2 - your definition of success
Day 3 - Your favorite teacher
Day 4 - your favorite book
Day 5 - your favorite quote
Day 6 - 20 of my favorite things
Day 7 - a photo that makes your heart melt
Day 8 - a photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 9 - a photo you took
Day 10 - a photo taken over 10 years ago of you
Day 11 - a photo of you recently
Day 12 - something you are OCD about
Day 13 - a fictional book
Day 14 - a non-fictional book
Day 15 - your role model
Day 16 - a song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 - an art piece (drawing, sculpture, painting, etc)
Day 18 - my wedding/future wedding/past wedding
Day 19 - a talent of yours
Day 20 - a hobby of yours
Day 21 - a recipe
Day 22 - a website
Day 23 - a youtube video
Day 24 - where I live- in detail, what makes it special?
Day 25 - guilty pleasure
Day 26 - your week, in great detail
Day 27 - my worst habit
Day 28 - whats in my handbag/purse
Day 29 - hopes,dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 - car you drive ( and past cars too!)

I am also aware that February only has 28 days and there are 30 challenges, so I will just combine a few.

I am excited! If anyone wants to join in the fun let me know so I can check out your daily posts too!

Avery's blog

2010-11-10T13:34:00.003-06:00

I decided to start a blog that is just going to be updates, pictures, and all that good stuff of Avery but it's going to be private, that way I can keep this blog open to all. If you want in, you can leave me your e-mail here or you can send me an email at

jesso22@yahoo.com (that is the letter o not a zero)

and I will send you an invite.

Avery's Arrival

2010-11-10T13:08:00.002-06:00

We have a baby!

That's right, our little girl made her arrival on October 27th. Here is her story. We were in the hospital for 6 days, so it's a long one!

The week leading up to my due date Justin and I walked and walked and ate a few foods they say induce labor. At my appointment a week before I was not dilated and not a whole lot was happening, other then the fact that the baby was measuring just great and looking healthy. My mom flew in on my due date which was the 21st, and still no baby. We spent the next day walking around the mall of america for over 6 hours, no baby. The next day we went shopping and walking a ton more and still no baby. Sunday we went to church and I got lots of sympathetic " You are still pregnant" comments, and still no baby. Monday we went in for an appointment and I was barely dilated to a 1. We had an induction date set for the next day but the doc decided to send us to the hospital that night to start me on a medication called cervadil to help my cervix soften and prepare for labor. We went out to one last dinner at Macaroni Grill and then it was off to the hospital. My mom stayed home since the plan for the night was just to start me on the meds, and let us have one last night of sleep before inducing in the morning.

We checked into the hospital around 7 Monday night and they got me all hooked up to the monitors. I was a little freaked out for the whole process since I had never been a patient in a hospital before. I have never even had stitches, broken a bone, or taken any meds stronger then a tylenol. I also got my very first IV which was one of the worst parts for me ( I don't know why, I just hated that thing). They were going to start the cervadil right away but they noticed I was already contracting on my own and they were about 4-6 min apart or so. I was in no pain so after a few hours they decided to go ahead a start the cervadil to speed things up a bit. They usually leave people on it for 12 hours, but I reacted very strongly to it and my contractions started coming more quickly and in sets of 3 with no break in between. It was getting pretty intense and I was really feeling the pain and started throwing up so they took me off the cervadil after abut 6 hours. Lets just say I got no sleep that night and was already exhausted.

The plan was to start pitocin on Tues morning, but I was already having pretty good contractions so they just let me labor on my own and said that we would most likely have this baby before 6 that night, the only problem was that I was dilating very slowly. Later that afternoon they went ahead and started the Pitocin and let me labor for a few more hours. 6:00 was quickly approaching and I was only at 5 cm after being in labor for almost 24 hours. They then decided to break my water (weirdest feeling ever). My contractions REALLY picked up after that. I spent time walking around, taking baths, etc to try and deal with the pain. Throughout the whole process I had been pretty level headed and calm but by this point I was soooo exhausted and in pain that I was starting to lose it. Justin was amazing through the whole process. He held my hand and kept eye contact with me and helped me breath through every single contraction for hours on end and I know I could not have done it without him. I was so tired though, that I was literally falling asleep for 1-2 minutes between contractions. By this point I was considering getting an epidural even though I didn't want one going into the situation, it was just so much longer, tiring, and painful that I thought it would be. I finally cracked when I started having cluster contractions again, they were coming in three's and I was getting no break for minutes at a time and I was still only a 6 or 7. I finally decided to get an epidural and it was a great decision. They gave it to me at about 2 or 3 in the morning, after about 33 hours and the relief was instant and I fell asleep on the spot.

I woke up the next morning feeling heavy and numb, but I had slept well and was in no pain and it was just what I needed to face the day. Overnight I had finally dilated to a 10 and I was ready to push that morning. We started pushing but after about an hour we weren't really getting anywhere so they decided to turn down my epidural. We waited for a little while and then started pushing again. After lots more pushing they decided to turn off my epidural completely to see if that would help since very little progress had been made. I was getting a little freaked out when I started to feel my contractions again, but I really wanted to get that baby out! I kept pushing and pushing and the doctor said that I was pushing in the right spot and that we were doing great so I felt that with a little more effort, this baby was finally going to come out, yet we still pushed for a few more hours and still no baby. They decided to let me rest again. To me it seemed out of nowhere when a group of doctors came in and hit me with the news that we needed to have a c-section. My water had been broken for a long time, the baby's heart was starting to decelerate when I pushed, and we had already been pushing for about 4 hours and they didn't like the lack of progress being made. I can't explain how defeated I felt in that moment, all I did was break down in tears. I was so confused and shocked and I couldn't believe I had done all that work to end this way. I was hit with all this talk of surgery and consent forms to be signed and all the legal business that seemed so unfair to talk about in the moment.

Before I knew it I was being taken into the OR by myself, prepped and numbed from the chest down. I couldn't stop the tears, and I think it was a mixture of defeat, excitement that I was going to see my baby soon, and relief that it was all going to be done. The OR was so bright and busy and there were so many people bustling around. I was desperate for Justin to come in, but they wouldn't let him in until they were sure the medication was working properly. Justin finally came in and then they cut me open (lovely, I know). I could feel the motion of it, but not the pain, it was quite the experience. When I finally heard my baby cry, I started sobbing. I was so relieved. I sent Justin to go look at her and I waited and waited. When they were finally done cleaning, weighing, and all the other initial things they do, they brought her to me and placed her by my face. She was so beautiful and calm and had the most perfect little nose and chubby little cheeks. I kissed her and talked to her and I was finally at peace.

Then I had to go to recovery, which was a little rough. I was separated from my baby and Justin and had to go be monitored for a little while. For some reason I was also shaking uncontrollably and dry heaving like crazy, it was more annoying then anything. I have no idea how much time passed, I was pretty out of it, but I was finally taken to my room and got to see my mom and Justin and then my baby. I held her for the first time, and even though I was beyond groggy, it was beautiful.

We were so exhausted after everything, so that night Justin and I decided to have the baby sleep in the nursery so we could catch up on some sleep and I could let the meds wear off a little. The next day was wonderful as we were well rested and able to enjoy our baby. Because of my c-section the kept us for 3 more days so that I could recover. I actually didn't mind being in the hospital at all. It was nice not to worry about meals or cleaning or anything else other then getting better and figuring our new baby out.

We were discharged on Saturday afternoon and I went outside for the first time in over 5 days, it was awesome and scary and exciting all at the same time.

After the surgery Justin had a chance to talk to the Dr and she said that the baby probably wouldn't have come out if we had continued to push. Her head was not centered right with my pelvic bone and she already had some swelling on her head from trying to be pushed and not fitting. We most likely would've made the situation worse if we pushed her down any further. We are so grateful for modern medicine, and when things were getting rough, that our baby was able to be born so quickly and perfectly healthy. I hate to think what our outcome may have been if we lived in an earlier time. Both the baby and I are healthy and happy and that is all that matters. Now that we are all home, those 3 days of labor seem so long ago, and they don't seem to matter much. It really doesn't matter how they get here, as long as they get here, and ours got here perfect and happy and healthy and for that we could not be more grateful. We love our little girl.

Waiting

2010-10-23T09:25:00.002-05:00

Yep we are still here, waiting for the arrival of our little girl. My mom flew in Thursday night, and yesterday, in an attempt to get this baby out we walked around the Mall of America for about 6 hours. No such luck. I know I am only 2 days overdue, but it's a weird thing when your due date passes you by. You wait and wait for that one day and once it is over, it almost feels like you will be pregnant forever since you don't have a day to look forward to anymore.

The plan for now is crossing our fingers and saying prayers that she arrives before Monday, if not, then we are going in Monday night to prep for induction. They are inducing us a little earlier than is standard since Justin will be out of town that weekend, and we thought it might be nice if he was present for the birth.

So... hopefully she makes her debut really soon, or else we are forcing her out tuesday morning!

The District part 2

2010-08-31T18:02:00.027-05:00

I am fully aware that it has been a month since I posted about the first week of my trip back east. We have been a little busy, but more on that later. Here is the (much delayed) conclusion of our trip! Enjoy.

Day 9

Day 9, the 9th of July to be exact, just happened to be my 25th birthday. It was a little tough for me to away from Justin but on the bright side, I had not been with my family on my birthday since I turned 17! My parent's spoiled me and so did my hubby. I woke up to balloons, had the most amazing cake from an authentic German Bakery, got tons of presents, went to dinner, and last but not least went to see Mary Poppins at the the Kennedy Center. It was an amazing day. I also happened to be 25 weeks pregnant on my 25th birthday.

Day 10

Had a fun girls day with my mom and sister. We went to Babies R Us, and spent a nice long day at the mall. My little sister took me to Build a Bear since I had never been there, and we made the cutest little bunny for the baby.

Day 11

We went to the Missionary farewell of a few of my little brother's friends, and then we came home a took Julie to the airport. It sure was quiet when we got back to the house and it was just me and mom and dad.

Day 12

Day 12 was the start of our vacation within my vacation. My mom, myself and a few of her friends decided to take a girls trip to see some sites in Pennsylvania. We drove to PA and checked into our hotel and got a late night snack at good ol Mickey D's. We wanted to get to PA so that the next morning we could wake up early and start the fun!

At the same time we were on our road trip, Justin was backpacking with his brother Shawn at the Wind river range in Wyoming. He looks forward to this trip all year, it's like his Christmas!

Day 13

This was an amazing day! We started the day off by fulfilling a dream of mine! We went to see Fallingwater, a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I have always been fascinated with him and have seen a few of his other homes, but this is the big one! It was amazing and totally lived up to my expectations. The house is built right into the side of a hill, right on top of a waterfall.

After Fallingwater we went to the memorial site of United Flight 93 that crashed on 9/11. It was very humbling and those victims on the plane were so brave in making the decision to fight back against the terrorists. They are just starting to build a permanent memorial so for now they have a make shift one. It was still interesting to read about the events of the day, learn of the victims, and see the field where the plane crashed.

After we left the flight 93 memorial, we drove to Johnstown PA. I was unaware of the events that took place here until my mom read a book and saw a documentary on the great Johnstown Flood. In 1889, Johnstown was devastated by a flood that killed over 2200 people. The flood was caused by a faulty dam that was owned by some wealthy men up on the hill who ignored warnings of the dams weakness. Johnstown is a valley and the flood waters and debris filled the entire valley. It became the site of the first disaster relief project by the American Red Cross. There is so much more to the story, it is truly fascinating. I would look into it if I were you, I learned so much on our trip.

In this picture you can still see where the dam used to be. The fenced lookout point is at one end, and you can see how the land is still curved from a dam that broke in 1889!

After Johnstown we headed back to DC. It was a long day, but it was an amazing day and I am so glad that my mom, Denise, and Elaine let me tag along.

Day 14

We spent the day unwinding from our trip, unpacking, and getting excited for Justin to arrive! I had not seen him in 2 weeks, which is the longest we had been apart in 5 years! It was so fun to have him arrive!! Molly may have been more excited then I was. She followed Justin around the entire time he was there, and she would just sit and stare at him. It was so funny.

Day 15

My parents both went to work in the morning, so Justin and I headed out on the metro and went to the Smithsonian museum of American History for a few hours.

Then we stopped by the old Post Office building which has a tower you can go up for some cool views of the city. I love how DC doesn't have huge skyscrapers so can see the whole city from up high.

Then later that night we went with my parents to the Pentagon Memorial for the victims of 9/11. It was really neat at night, and such a beautiful tribute to those lives that were lost.

Then we went and got some ice cream and sat outside the airport and watched the planes fly in over us. They get pretty close, it was cool to have them fly right over our heads.

Day 16

In the afternoon my dad took us on a tour of the Pentagon. It was Justin's first time going in. We even went in the press conference room and Justin gave us a little debriefing on the war.

Later we all went to dinner at a nice italian place and then decided to head into Georgetown and maybe get a Georgetown cupcake but the line was SO long. So we went and walked around the National Cathedral, and then went and got some amazing gelato. It was our last full day in DC, and I was not ready for our trip to be over yet.

Day 17

We spent the morning finishing our packing and getting ready to say goodbye. My parents were incredibly generous in giving us a car, yeah thats right, a car! We loaded up our new Santa Fe and headed out. I had a really hard time leaving. My dad left a short time later for Afghanistan and so it was hard to say bye to him, and I think the realization that this was my last trip home as a kid really hit me. Next time I see my parents I am going to have a baby and it will be so different. I was a little emotional after leaving, but on our way out of town we stopped by Shawn(Justin's older brother) and Krystal's house. It was so good to see them and our little niece Victoria. She had gotten so big and was talking up a storm! She had all these cute little bracelets and jewels that she was showing us. Krystal was also pregnant at the time, and we also were wearing the same shirt. They now have another little girl named Nora who arrived on Aug 26th.

That night we made it to Kirtland, Ohio where we were able to quickly see some of the Church sites. We showed up a little after hours but the President of the Kirtland mission offered to give us a private tour of the Newell K Whitney store. It was so special being there, and so many amazing and important events in church history took place there. I am so glad that we made the stop to see it.

After Kirtland we were put up for the night by our friends Scott and Kara Mortenson. They are also originally from Logan and lived out here with us in Minnesota until they moved to Cleveland about a year ago. It was so good to see them again! They have a beautiful home and it was great to have such a nice place to stay the night.

Day 18

The last day of our trip. The entire day was spent in the car. About 12-13 hours to be exact. We listened to many podcasts, filled up at many gas stations, and went through a few states we had never been too. The highlight of the trip was getting my hands on some fresh Krispy Kreme donuts. We don't have any in Minnesota. The low point was the terrible traffic outside of Chicago. We got to sit and look at the skyline, knowing that the best pizza ever was nestled among those skyscrapers while we snacked on granola bars (and Krispy Kremes!)

Eventually we made it home. 18 days was a long time to be away, but part of me was still not ready to go back to my normal routine. It was nice to sleep in our comfy bed again though!

And I would like to mention that spending two weeks with your mother when you are pregnant with your first child can be a little dangerous.

Example A: Closet before trip

Example B: Closet after trip

I see one spoiled girl in the making!

The End!

(finally)

5 years

2010-08-29T22:49:00.004-05:00

A lot can happen in 5 years.

5 years ago today, I met Justin at Utah State University. Little did I know on that day, that that boy would become the love of my life, my best friend, eternal companion, and soon, the father of our baby girl. In 5 years we have created a family, and I am thankful for today to remind me just how lucky I am that I was at the right place at the right time.

And thanks to Justin for giving me a beautiful life that is never without laughter. You are seriously the best husband ever and I am glad that you are mine. What other husband would be so much fun shopping, and let his wife take embarrassing pictures of him?

But for the record, both of these events were of Justin's own doing with no motivation by me. That's why I love him so.

I thought he was trying on work slacks, he came out in these very nice Levi shorts instead.

He just might be wearing the fake belly that you can try on with clothes at Motherhood Maternity.

Yeah, he makes life very fun.

I love him.

The District

2010-07-22T11:56:00.013-05:00

From July 1-18 I was able to take an amazing trip to visit my family in Washington D.C. Over the past few years my family has been meeting up in Utah for most of our visits, so I had not been back east for over 2 years! It was long overdue, and an incredible few weeks. One of my big reasons for going out was saying goodbye to my baby brother Jacob who left on his mission to Guatemala City, and my dad who is leaving tomorrow for Afghanistan for 9 months.

Day 1

I flew out on the first and I was greeted at the airport by my parents who I had not seen since Thanksgiving and my siblings who I had not seen since last August, almost a whole year! We went back to my parent's apartment and I got to see our little dog Molly. She just might be the funniest dog I have ever met and we all love her to pieces.

Day 2

We went to lunch, did some shopping with my mom and sister while my dad took Jake to his final interview for his mission. Then we all went out to dinner and then we saw Toy Story 3. It was seriously adorable, and by this time I was already feeling very spoiled! Out to eat twice in one day, shopping, and movies are not exactly part of our daily routine in Minnesota!

Day 3

We went and saw the movie Grown Ups, it was pretty funny. Then we all went to a Washington National's baseball game. It was looking pretty dismal until some amazing plays in the 8th and they ended up scoring the winning run in the bottom of the 9th. After the game my mom and sister and I hit up the mall and did some major clothes shopping. I actually have lots of cute maternity clothes to wear now!

On a side note, my little sister has a boyfriend back home in Provo and my little brother has a "friend" that he dated for a while until he came home to prepare for his mission. The girlfriend title may not be there, but the sappy attitude and constant texting still were!

On another side note, last year after my little brother moved to provo, my parents put their house up for rent and moved to a one bedroom apartment in the city. It works perfectly for them, and having three extra people there was a little cramped but really fun.

It did however pose a problem for two of the people in the apartment. The lack of privacy led my younger siblings to extraordinary measures. The only two rooms you can be alone in are the kitchen(which has a door) and the bathroom. They each took turns using the kitchen to skype with their significant others.

Yes that is an air mattress my little brother pulled in the kitchen, and both of these pictures were taken after 1 in the morning! This is what I dealt with EVERY night!

Day 4

The 4th of July was an exciting day for us! We went to church and then after my little brother Jake was set apart as a missionary in the Guatemala City South mission. It was a wonderful blessing and I am so grateful that I was able to be there with him.

Later that night we went downtown to see the fireworks. It was a madhouse! The fireworks were great though, and my parents live close enough that we decided to bypass the crowds and the metro and we walked home after.

Day 5

We spent most of the day packing Jake up. We went out for a last meal with him to the Cheesecake Factory, and mostly tried to enjoy our last day with him for 2 years!

Day 6

The bittersweet day was here! We took Jake to the airport and said goodbye to him for 2 years. It was a hard day but an exciting one as well. These next two years will be the best of his life so far and I am so proud of him for making such great choices. I still can't believe that my baby brother is a missionary!

Good lucky baby brother! We love you!

Day 7

My sister and I relaxed, and watched a lot of terrible/awesome tv. Why are there so many shows about Jersey on these days? We also brought out our inner nerds and played some awesome computer games. Oh yeah my parents apartment building caught on fire! We thought the alarms were a drill at first but while going down 16 flights of stairs we started smelling smoke and then firefighters passed us and I got a little nervous. It was a minor fire and taken care of quickly, but there were about 6 fire trucks and ambulances outside. At least we got some fresh air!

Day 8

Sister Spa day! Julie and I went to lunch and then we went to get manicures and pedicures. We had a delightful time being pampered and having some bonding time.

And we can't forget about our other sister that we played with a lot that day!

We love Miss Molly

Jake also entered the MTC. My brother Jordan, his wife Aubrey, and their son Kaden took him along with my grandparents. We all wanted to be there but we were glad that Jake had family in Utah to take him.

Lets end there for today shall we. I will post days 9-18 soon!

DC

2010-07-10T00:28:00.004-05:00

I know ,I know it has been forever since I last blogged! I am currently in the middle of a two week stay with my parents in Washington DC. We just sent off my little brother Jacob on his two year church mission to Guatemala City. I just celebrated my 25th birthday tonight by going to Mary Poppins at the Kennedy center, and we have been keeping very busy with many adventures. I am apart from Justin who had to stay back in Minnesota for work, but he is flying out here to meet up with my on Wed night. I am feeling great and I have to admit that I really love being pregnant. I just can't believe that I am 25 weeks already! I have been posting lots of pictures of my trip on facebook but I thought I would post the link to the album on the blog so here it is

Jessica's trip to DC

And I guess it is time for a shot of my pregnant self so here you go

I just happened to turn 25 years old and I am 25 weeks along!

That is all for now! More to come soon!!!!

It's A ......

2010-05-26T19:30:00.004-05:00

I have so many things to blog about like the awesome trip to Chicago we took last week, camping with our friends, being pregnant, the LOST finale, etc... but this is too fun not to blog about first.

We went in for our first ultrasound today. It was so amazing to see our little baby moving around! Everything was there and in the right place, and everything looks really healthy. We were thrilled to finally be seeing our baby but of course we also were dying to know the gender. We were basically convinced for some reason that we were having a boy. Everyone thought it was a boy and Justin and I just sort of pictured ourselves with a boy, but we really had no preference, that is just what we were thinking. Low and behold there were no boy parts to be found, and our baby is a little GIRL! We were both pretty surprised but we couldn't be happier. We can't believe that we are going to have a daughter! My emotions have already changed so much just knowing about our little girl and dreaming of princess dress ups, barbie dolls, and playing house. I am all girl through and through so I can't wait for a little play mate. After the doctor's we went a picked out a little something for our soon to be very spoiled princess. All in all it was a fabulous day and we can't wait to meet our girl. And no, we don't have any names picked out yet! We are very indecisive and we might just let her pick when she turns 5!

Here is our baby girl

Here she is facing down, and a view of her spinal cord.

Here is her first little dress and shoes.

(getting them on a great sale helps too!)

10/21/10

2010-04-20T15:35:00.005-05:00

October 21, 2010

That would be my due date.

Watch out world, we are going to be parents,

and we could not be more thrilled.

P.S. Thanks for holding my pee stick so I could get a cute picture of you honey.

Hello Again

2010-04-02T11:32:00.016-05:00

Well hello blog world. It has been far too long since I have updated this here blog, and for that I am sorry. I have not even blogged about Thanksgiving, Christmas, or anything after that. I want to catch up, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing so, so I think I might try this in one post.

Here goes...

My parents came out for Thanksgiving. We looked at sculpture gardens, went to the Mall of America, had a huge homemade dinner made from scratch by my mother and I, ate juicy lucy's at Matt's Bar, went to the Spaghetti Factory, saw the Holidazzle parade, and braved Black Friday. Their stay was too short but we loved seeing them and taking them around our city.

In early December we got free tickets to a Jazz game, had great seats (we may or may not have snuck down low) and visited our friends who had a suite. Jazz lost but it was a nice night out.

Then it was finishing work and finals and then taking off for Christmas. We spent two weeks in Utah with Justin's family this year. We had a lot of fun, played lots of cards, ate lots of food, went to lots of family parties, and watched lots of movies. It was great to have the whole family together. We got so spoiled from both of our families this year (not that I am complaining). It was great to be back in Logan. It is just so familiar and we have a lot of memories there, not to mention some of my favorite places to eat ever! We also drove to Salt Lake one day and spent some time with Jordan, Aubrey, and Kaden. It was really good to see them and of course that kid melts my heart!

Oh and did I mention that our memory card completely crashed the day after Christmas and we lost all of our pictures? I was a little traumatized over losing 1,000 plus pictures, but life moves on. Here is my cute nephew though (taken after a new memory card was given to us at Best Buy, after learning that there was nothing they could do to save our old one)

This kid loves to Skype. He is fascinated by it and gets the biggest grins talking to Grandma and Grandpa and Molly dog.

And of course I made Justin take our "show us what you got for Christmas" picture that both of our moms made us take every year (minus a few things that we forgot to put in the pictures)

Upon arriving home after Christmas we made it our goal to get through all 5 season of LOST before the new season began and we did it. We almost watched it every night after work and school. This was my view every night for approximately 2 months.

One of my Christmas presents from Justin were tickets to see the Titanic exhibit that was here at the Minneapolis Science Museum. I was so excited and it was so fun to have something to look forward to after Christmas was over. The exhibit was awesome, I have always been fascinated by the history of the Titanic.

Learning about Science/Dance party.

Our favorite part of the day may have been when we found plush dolls that represented diseases. Here is Justin giving loves to the "Herpes" doll. I don't remember what mine was.

We have also been having fun playing around with the pasta maker Justin got me for Christmas (and it was almost confiscated at the airport because apparently it looked like some kind of weapon on the x-ray). I LOVE fresh pasta and turns out it is pretty easy to make (with a kitchen aid that is).

Our state of the art drying rack

Top it off with homemade Alfredo sauce. SO GOOD!

Oh and just so you know, I have one of those awesome husbands who gets me beautiful Spring flowers in the middle of January, just so he can brighten my day. Ya, I love him a lot.

Wow, that was a lot of picture uploading. So there you have it, the highlights of our life up to January. I think I will start February in a few days, I am a little burnt out from this humongous post.

Our Moms love us!

2010-02-05T18:31:00.004-06:00

Yesterday we got a Valentine's Day box in the mail from my mom. Today we got one from Justin's mom (I guess technically they are from our "families" but anyone who has a mom knows that the boxes were put together by our moms.)

We are so excited and it makes us feel so loved that they are thinking of us when we are all the way out in Minnesota! We seriously have been blessed in life with amazing Mothers!

Thanks Moms!!!! We love you!!!

And we very much appreciate candy!

(I may have tried to make the dove chocolates, kisses, and cinnamon lip bags look full in this picture because even though we got the box yesterday, they all may be half empty.)

And I am also really excited because I also got my watch that I won online around Christmas. It is from the Timex crystal collection and is real leather with real swarovski crystals. It is pretty pimp!

Wednesday's Read

2010-02-03T13:05:00.003-06:00

Okay so I know that I said I may not post in a while yesterday, but Hubs is at school and I have the day off so I figured I should at least do a Wednesday's read.

The theme for today is, "Books I have a love/hate relationship with".

The following books are all fairly popular titles that I heard enough good things about, so I decided to give them a try. All of the books had parts that I loved and parts that I hated. But were the parts that I loved good enough to outweigh that parts that I hated? I like to think so, and I do not regret reading any of these books. Just because I have a different opinion from the author of how a characters life should turn out doesn't make it wrong, just different, and difference of opinion is what makes life(and books) so interesting.

I also learned something about myself through reading these books that I think I need to change a little. The parts that I hated in most of the books were the parts where things turned ugly for a character that I loved, and they didn't get a perfect resolution. But isn't that more realistic then in most books where most things turn out unbelievably perfect? I am not saying that happy endings are bad, I LOVE happy endings! I just think that I need to have better respect for authors who don't do "happy endings" . I think there is something pretty bold in writing a harsh and realistic life for a fictional character that people grow to love.

I still read to get a little escape from reality and I love to read about happy times, love stories, and destiny, but there is also something beautiful and powerful about those books that are a little bit tragic and painful, because that is how many of the characters grow and find out who they really are.

Here are some of those books.

As always no real spoilers, because I hate spoilers in book reviews.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

This is a book about Susie Salmon, a young teen who is murdered by a neighbor. Her murder takes place at the beginning of the book and is quite harsh. It is not necessarily too graphic, but it is so sad and brutal that it was pretty hard to read. Once you jump that hurdle, you join Susie in the "in between". She basically watches her family and friends and murderer in the aftermath of her death and in the years to come. Again there were parts that I loved, and parts I hated.

I loved how some of the characters developed and how they grew, but I disliked the story line that dealt with her mother, and there was a a weird but kind of lovely part at the end that I still have mixed feelings about. Some people were really bothered at how the murderer ended up but I didn't really mind it that much. It seemed to me that not only was it realistic but also ironic. I did enjoy this book, maybe I didn't love it, but it was interesting and lovely and painful and sweet. So who knows maybe you will love it.

The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards.

It begins in the 60's with a young doctor and his wife who is pregnant and in labor. They rush to his office and to his surprise delivers twins. A healthy boy and a girl. He sees right away that the girl has downs syndrome and makes a decision that will affect them all for the rest of their lives. I was fascinated by this book from the very beginning, the story was so interesting and the characters were very real. Unfortunately for me, towards the middle of the book some of the characters started off on paths that I wasn't too thrilled about. I will say that this is not a book about unhappy endings, but with a messy middle and broken people who make bad decisions. I was also not a huge fan of the writing style. The over describing and other things were a little annoying. I didn't dislike it though. It was captivating and tragic, but also very beautiful and heartwarming. And although I disagree with some of the plot turns I never stopped reading and never stopped being interested. Getting from point A to Point B was worth some of the mess along the way.

The Uglies, Pretties and Specials by Scott Westerfeld.

I loved "Uglies", I really liked "Pretties", and I am totally undecided on "Specials". This series posed an interesting question, I did not enjoy how a lot of things turned out in the end for one reason or another, but does that take away the love of the first two books? I don't think so. The first two books in the series are really awesome, I guess I just had expectations that were not fulfilled in the end and it kinda broke my heart. I did read something on the authors website about some of the decisions he made, and it did make more sense...but still. I do recommend this series because it is creative and unique and the first books are good enough that it makes a bad final book worth it.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger.

This book was more love then hate, but there were still some things I didn't like about it. This book is about a set of twin sisters who inherit a flat in London from their aunt after she dies, only they never knew they had an aunt. The flat overlooks the Highgate Cemetery in London and the mood of the whole book is that of the cemetery. This book is a ghost story (with real ghosts), a love story, a coming of age story. It is kind of spooky, kind of funny, kind of lovely, kind of tragic and very fascinating. It has some unexpected turns and it is really unlike anything I have ever read. I really enjoyed this book, but I added it to this list since it is a list of books that aren't all warm and fuzzy, and there were a few odd parts. Some of the best parts though are about a character named Martin who lives upstairs, never leaves his flat, and is completely overcome by his OCD habits. I know that this book is not for everyone, but just typing up this quick blurb reminds me of how much I liked it. It also helps that my copy of the book is personalized and autographed by the author.

I am going to also make note of another book that I really have a love/hate with, and that is the other novel my Ms. Niffenegger, "The Time Travelers Wife."

Have you guys heard of this book? Just kidding I think everyone has since it has been on the bestsellers list for like 5 years. I will just say that I think the story line is fascinating and clever and romantic and heartbreaking all at the same time. I think it is a love story but also a very sad story. That part I love. I had a difficult time with the language and the sexual content and basically the crudeness that overwhelmed parts of the story. If it was not for that I would've liked it a lot better. "Her Fearful Symmetry "on the other hand had very little language and minor sexual content. And yes I am one of the VERY rare people who have read both and actually prefers HFS of TTTW.

So there you have it. I know that I wrote way too much but now you have my opinion on some of those books that you may have heard about, may have seen, and were maybe thinking of reading. In the end, I think it is rare to find a book that is so bad that I actually regret reading it, but there are a handful of books that I enjoyed, but they have their flaws along the way. These are the books that have amazing highs and bad lows but in the end, I am glad that I read them.

Leave me a comment if you have read any of these books and agree or disagree.

I am sure some of you have loved and hated some of these books.

Get Lost!

2010-02-02T13:13:00.003-06:00

It appears to some that I have abandoned my blog. And I see why some may think that since it has been about 2 months since my last post. But in reality my priorities have just not been in the blogosphere. You see, I do have my reasons for not blogging....

It started around Thanksgiving when my parents got here. We had too much fun and were too busy to blog, then we were busy getting ready for Christmas and work and school and such. Then we went to Utah for Christmas for 2 weeks and were too busy to blog then. And then the day after Christmas our memory card magically fried itself and we lost over 1,000 pictures including our whole Christmas trip. When we got home I really was not so motivated to blog with no pictures of anything so I didn't.

But my blog friends I am going to be completely honest and tell you the main reason that I have not blogged ......

We are full heartedly addicted to Lost. The final season starts today, and when we got home from Utah in January we decided to try and catch up while the final season was on. And by "catch up" I mean start. We started at the very beginning and it has been less then a month and we are almost done with season 3. This show is seriously amazing! But it has been a challenge to stay away from spoilers. With the final season starting there are huge promos everywhere and it has taken much self control to look away, plug our ears, and mute the tv when a preview comes on.

So maybe when we are all caught up with our new love, I will return to this blog.

And if you leave a spoiler in the comments I will hunt you down....

Talking Volumes with Stephen King and Audrey Niffenegger.

2009-11-19T23:26:00.007-06:00

Last night Justin and I went to a great event! We went to "Talking Volumes" put on by Minnesota Public Radio at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. MPR basically puts on a show with authors, talking about their new books. We were lucky enough to get to go to one of the biggest "Talking Volumes" ever. We got to see a rare dual "Talking Volumes" with Stephen King and Audrey Niffenegger. My brother is a HUGE Stephen King fan(you should see his book collection) and so he called me one day to see if I would go to this with the chance that there would be a book signing or something along those lines. I was excited for not only Stephen King, but Audrey Niffenegger who wrote, "The Time Travelers Wife." I also recently finished her new book, "Her Fearful Symmetry" and you just might hear what I thought about it in a later post. I made plans to get tickets to the event a few months ago, and it's a good thing since the show sold out in about 30 minutes. Stephen King was pretty much a superstar and everyone went nuts over him. He was so witty and personable and an all around treat to listen too. Audrey was a bit more dry humored and reserved but I can't imagine it is easy to "open" for King as she referred to it herself. They both read from their books, talked about their writing processes and characters and answered audience questions. It was fascinating to me, being such a lover of the written word, to hear two amazing author's talk about how they create and feel about their work.

Even though the "King" did not sign books( I am sure he would have been truly mobbed) Ms. Niffenegger did. I was excited to get my book personalized from her!

One of our favorite parts of the evening were the ooh's, ahh's and gasps from the audience when King would hint at future works or tell the future lives of past characters. It was pretty fun.

We had a great evening. It was fun to get out into the city and hear from some truly amazing people. I only wish that my brother could have been there. Stephen King is his idol and we both felt a little guilty having the opportunity to see him live instead of Jordan, but I did take some good notes for him!!!

Sorry the pictures aren't great. No flash in low light.

This is me and Audrey Niffenegger as she was singing my book.

And here is one for Jordan. I wanted to try and get a little video clip and I got one of him telling a great story about when his first novel, "Carrie" sold.

Happy Birthday Kaden!

2009-11-17T23:50:00.004-06:00

Today is our nephew Kaden's FIRST Birthday!

This little man has brought so much joy into our lives the past year!

It is so hard to live so far away and miss all of his first milestones, but we were lucky enough to get to see him a lot this summer, and we will see him at Christmas.

He is the happiest baby I have ever met! He is always smiling at you and is so friendly. He is also cruiser! He has already been walking for almost 2 months!

Being the only Rasmussen grandchild(and the only Murnin one as well), this boy gets a LOT of love. But how could he not? He is the cutest little guy ever!

Here are some photo's of us all getting a little "Kaden love" over the past year.

We were sad that we could not be at his party, but we skyped with him so we could tell him Happy Birthday and see him running around and playing with his new toys.

And this I stole off my brothers blog because I think it is just too cute!

Happy Birthday Kaden.

We love you to pieces!

The Better Burger & Soup Du Jour

2009-11-16T10:17:00.004-06:00

This post is actually two posts in one. They are both food related.

The Better Burger

Don't judge us. We like to occasionally hit up a fast food joint and indulge off the dollar menu. As of late we have enjoyed the Dollar McDouble. Its a double cheeseburger for a dollar people! The other night as we were driving to our local Mickey D's we were discussing the recent ad campaign of the new dollar double cheeseburger at Burger King. They have been marketing it as a bigger and better burger than the McDonald's version. It just so happens that our BK is right next door to our McD's so we decided to put their claim to the test.

Our first observation was that indeed the BK burger was a bigger burger. It was also on a sesame seed bun as opposed to the plain bun of McDonald's. I was surprised at how different the burgers tasted. They were very unique to their establishments. The Burger King burger has thicker patties that have that char-broiled taste. The McDonald's burger tasted like a McDonald's burger so.... pretty much awesome. In the end Justin liked the BK burger a little better and I liked the McDonald's burger better. They are both tasty but given the choice I would take the McDonald's any day. But we could not just leave it at that. There is another popular eating establishment who also has a double cheese burger on their dollar menu. They are known as Wendy's. Did we try this burger and compare it to the others? You bet we did. And after comparing the three, we are still set on our first choices. Sorry Wendy.

And please no comments about what we are putting into our bodies, because we already know!

Heaven.

Soup Du Jour

One time we were at a a restaurant in Logan called Hamilton's, and on a whim I ordered the french onion soup, even though I hate onions with a passion. It was heavenly and I have been craving it ever since. I will just say that I don't hate the flavor of onions, I enjoy it. It is totally a textural thing. I despise eating onions unless their texture has been fully compromised. In a good french onion soup they are cooked so long, and are so caramelized that they lose that "crunch" that I hate. Anyway, a few Sunday's ago I decided to bust out my culinary skills and make homemade french onion soup. It took some work, was fairly pricey, and from start to finish it took about 5 hours, but it was so good and so worth it. I was so proud of how it turned out for being my first time!

And of course we couldn't end our meal without a decadent desert to compliment our french onion soup. What better then creme brulee, which I had also never made. It was very easy and inexpensive and also turned out great!

It was a great French meal!

You know what they say, "When in France".

Or is it Rome?

Wednesday's Read

2009-11-11T23:08:00.004-06:00

I know it has been forever since I have posted a "Wednesday's Read" and I apologize. I have read some great books as of late that I am excited to share with you. But first, let me begin with a story.

About five years ago I had just finished reading a book and I loved it. I knew that I needed to share it with my mom. I called her up and said, "Mom I just finished an amazing book and I need you to read it so we can talk about it." She said, " Funny, I just finished a great book in my book club and I was going to tell you to read it." I said, "What was it called"? She said, "Life of Pi". I then proceeded to say that that was the exact book that I was going to tell her to read. We had read it within days of each other. And that is how it works between my mother and I. We love a lot of the same books and have similar taste when it comes to what we read(and similar taste in almost everything else too). We are also both avid readers, and have a true love and appreciation for a good book.

And that brings me to today's bookS. Yes plural on the books! My mom and I are always trading reading suggestions so that we can chat about books, and that is how my mom came up with a great idea. My parents live in Washington DC and sometimes my mom substitutes for the schools in Virginia. She happened to be working in a middle school on the day that they were introducing this years "Virginia Readers" books to the kids. She heard a brief summery of all the books and thought they sounded really fun. We also both really enjoy YA books! So we decided that together we are going to read all the books on the list. So far she has read 4 and I am just starting the 4th. I have been loving it so far. It has also been fun to talk about the books as we are reading them. Every year the Virginia Readers Association puts out a list for primary, elementary, middle, and high school aged kids. Then the students are awarded depending on how many of the books they read. It reminds me of the Pizza Hut sponsored "Book It" program. Do you guys remember that? Anyway, every year the kids also choose a winner out of all the books. We think that when we are done with this years list, we might go back and read some of the past winners. They have them all the way back to 1982!

Okay, enough rambling, lets get on to the books!

The first book we read from the list is, "The Black Book of Secrets," by F.E. Higgins. I was hooked just from the title and cover of this book.

The black book of secrets is the story of a pawnbroker, told by his apprentice. But he is no ordinary pawnbroker you see, you go to him to pawn your secrets. They are all recorded in a mysterious black book.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a little dark(which I totally dig), mysterious, quirky, and even a little whimsical. It was received very well by both my mother and I.

The next book we read is, "First Light," by Rebecca Stead.

Unlike the first book, I was not super excited for this one based on the title, cover, or synopsis. It is the story of a boy named Peter, whose father is a scientist, who goes with his family on an expedition to greenland and discovers "something" in the icy frontier. It is also the story of Thea, who lives with her family in Greenland.

Let me tell you, mom and I were both pleasantly surprised and pleased with this book. It is very interesting and I was hooked and fascinated as I read it. I thought it was a great book!

The next book we read is, "Book of a Thousand Days," by Shannon Hale. Oh how we loved this book! I adored it!

Shannon Hale has done it again! This book is the story of a handmaid named Datshi who is locked in a tower for seven years with her lady Saren. It is written by Datshi and is a journal of sorts. Just like another favorite of mine, "Goose Girl", it is also loosely based on a Grimm's fairytale. So far I think this has been my favorite. I guess deep down I will always be a little girl who loves her fairy tales.

I would recommend any of the books so far to anyone out there. I think that Young Adult fiction is perfect for all ages. We have been having fun reading and discussing so far, and if you would like to join us, here is the list. From the link if you click where it says, "Middle School," you will find the list of books we are reading.

Stay tuned to hear how the others turn out!

Halloween

2009-11-02T14:36:00.001-06:00

We had a great Halloween this year. On Friday we went to the Annual MHA Halloween party. We dressed up as a retired couple from Florida, out for our morning walk around the mall.

He is going to be so sexy as an old man!

I had these pictures of my "grandkids" in my fanny pack, and I would take them out and show everybody how lovely they are.

This is my real hair. No wigs for me!

What is Halloween without a party collage?

On Halloween(saturday) we had a nice afternoon at home, and then we passed out some candy to trick or treaters. I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the door one time to find about 5 boys around the age of 10. All of them were dressed as army men except one, who was dressed in Middle Eastern attire. I think he was a terrorist captured. They got skittles for sure!

After the trick or treaters came and depleted the candy supply I was hoping to eat all this week, we went out to dinner with some friends. We went to Matt's Bar for some Juicy Lucy's. For those of you who are in the dark about this heavenly fare, let me enlighten you.

Juicy Lucy's are a burger stuffed with oozing, melting, bubbling cheesy goodness in the middle.

We love them!

We hope you all had a great Halloween!

Now where's my walker?

Beautiful Nauvoo

2009-10-26T13:34:00.017-05:00

Justin and I had the amazing opportunity to go to Nauvoo, IL over the weekend. Nauvoo is a remarkable place. I felt the spirit the minute we pulled into the city. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life, and I can't imagine how the saints felt having to leave this place to head into the unknown, barren land. It was pretty chilly and rainy for 2 of the three days we were there, but the rain did nothing to dampen the spirit and vibrant fall colors that took your breath away. It was a pretty slow time of year and were were fortunate to have the city almost to ourselves. We would sometimes go an hour or so without seeing another person, and most of the time it was just us and the missionary couples that serve there. Words can't express the gratitude that I have for those faithful saints that left their home in beautiful Nauvoo, and suffered innumerable trials and hardships so they could practice their religion without persecution, and paved the way for people like me. It was a beautiful, humbling, informative, inspiring, peaceful, fun, and Testimony building trip and I am so grateful that we were able to go.

Here is a sampling of the pictures that we took.

(Click on the collage to make it bigger)

I still can't get over the beauty of Nauvoo. The fall colors at this time of year were unreal.

We did a session in the Temple on Friday morning. The Temple is so beautiful, and being able to do a session on our trip was wonderful.

The Joseph Smith home, graves, and other properties owned by the Community of Christ church.

Here are a few pictures of the homes of the saints and the shops and buildings that you can visit. I loved the individual stories of the people who lived and worked here, and ultimately left it behind to follow the Prophet. The spirit was so strong in every single home!

Carthage Jail.

The Monument to Women at the visitors center.

2009-10-11T18:29:00.002-05:00

Dear Twins- I am raising my (HHH Metrodrome commemorative) glass to you! I love you and I have a big favor to ask. Please Please Please win the game tonight! We have tickets for Monday and we really want to use them! Thanks.

P.S. Please disregard my messy scrapbook table in the background.

Conference

2009-10-04T13:57:00.015-05:00

This is what Conference looks like at our house today.

Fresh smoothies made by Justin

breakfast cake made by Jess

and Conference on our lovely Mac.

not to mention we are still in our p.j's

It's a good day.

MHA Fishing Trip 09

2009-09-29T23:46:00.012-05:00

This was our second year at the annual MHA fishing trip. We had a blast as always! The weekend was full of beach volleyball, lawn games, cheese curds at the "Wagon Wheel", bonfires, smores, socializing, people being wasted, entertainment from said wasted ones, golfing, eating, card games, watching football, mosquito bites, major humidity, frizzy hair thanks to said humidity, water kickball, and lots of laughing! We can't wait to go back next year!

Our Cabin

Awesome game of water kickball

with an awesome kick by Rob

P.S

Today is my brother Jordan's 26th Birthday!

Happy Birthday Jord!

A road trip, a Fair, and First day.

2009-09-28T22:50:00.020-05:00

So here is the promised post! I am going to try and catch up on some of the stuff we have been up to since moving back to Minnesota. I am going to try and do this in chronological order.

The Drive Back

On the dive back from Utah this summer we stopped again at Mt. Rushmore. I really love Mt. Rushmore and even though some people think it is smaller in person, I still find it so impressive!

One of my favorite parts of our road trip home was catching an amazing double palindrome on the odometer! I was so excited! I kinda have a thing for palindromes, it's a weird obsession of mine.

Another highlight was when we stopped at the Mitchell Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. I am such a sucker for off the highway tourist traps, and Justin is such a sport and takes me to them! I mean when you are driving across South Dakota you HAVE to stop at the "World's ONLY Corn Palace" right?

And here is our packed little car. It was stuffed to the brim, with a bike on the roof. Justin is such a champ to drive across the midwest not being able to see a dang thing out the back window. We are again so thankful for free podcasts. "Stuff you should know", and "The Onion radio news" saved our sanity.

The Minnesota State Fair

The fair is a big deal here. Everyone goes....seriously. And when the fair is going on, everyone talks about it. So once again we HAD to go. I will let the pictures tell our "Fair"y tale.

Deep Fried Oreo's

First Day Of School

Justin started his second year of school out here, only one more to go after this. This year he is pretty much a full time MBA student. This is his second to last first day of school picture EVER, so of course I had to document. Thanks for posing for yet another picture honey. You are a great sport and I love you! I am so proud of what a good student you are!

That is it for tonight!

I still have a lot more to post so check back!

Much to blog about

2009-09-25T14:18:00.002-05:00

I have a lot to blog about! We have been so busy doing all sorts of things, and I have lots of pictures to prove it! I have just been to busy and too tired to blog about it. But don't worry, it is coming. Soon. Perhaps even tonight if I can muster up the energy. So stay tuned and I might actually try to get caught up!

One Year Ago...

2009-09-17T13:12:00.005-05:00

One year ago, this was my post.

September 17, 2008 was the day that our niece Victoria was born. It was also the day that we became an aunt and an uncle. I can't believe a year has already gone by, and we just love having this little girl as part of our family. We wish that we lived closer to Shawn and Krystal so that we could see all three of them more!

Happy Birthday Victoria!

We love you!

Us saying good bye to Victoria last month in Utah.

Wednesday's Read

2009-09-16T15:45:00.003-05:00

Today I will talk about a few of my summer reads. I read a little over 20 books this summer, some of them noteworthy, some of them not, and some of them awful. As I was searching for books to pass the time on those lazy summer days, I turned to a children's series that I was hearing excellent things about, "Percy Jackson and the Olympians", by Rick Riordan.

There are 5 books in the series and I read 2 this summer and I finally got my hands on the third(there are MAJOR waiting times at the library for these books!) So far, I really enjoy this series, it vaguely reminds me of the beloved Harry Potter.

We have a boy named Percy who discovers in his pre-teens that he is "special". Percy has certain special powers being that he is part God(in the Greek mythological sense). He doesn't end up at Hogwarts, but he does end up at a special camp for half-bloods. As a potential "chosen one" Percy faces treacherous tasks to keep peace among the Gods, but of course he is not alone in all of this, for what is a chosen one without his posse? In Percy's case he has Grover and Annabeth by his side, to battle the enemies.

In all reality, although there are similarities between this series and Harry Potter, I think that it is more of a compliment then anything. Who doesn't love HP? These are fun books that are an obvious easy read seeing as they are in the Children's genre. I also feel that they are quite educational when it comes to Greek Mythology. There are many myths and creatures that I new virtually nothing of until I read about them in these books.

So far the "Percy Jackson" series has been exciting, scary, funny and even educational. I know that there are times when I just want to read an entertaining and easy book that purely entertains, and these are that kind of book for me, a great summer read.

So if you ever find yourself going through Harry Potter withdrawls and need a book about a chosen boy with special powers and his two sidekicks, warding off evil while heeding advice from a wise old confidant, give the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series a try.

*The fourth and fifth books are both out-the fifth just barely came out. I have yet to read them yet.

Friday's Read??

2009-09-04T23:29:00.006-05:00

I have never before done this, strayed from my beloved Wednesday's read and created a whole new edition, behold... Friday's read. This will only happen once and it is a special occasion because I can't wait until Wednesday to blog my thoughts about the book I just read.

"Catching Fire", by Suzanne Collins is book two in the Hunger Games series. I LOVED this book! It was just as great as the first, and maybe even better because you know the characters, and you have invested your feelings in their lives.

Of course before I started this book I had to hurry and re-read "The Hunger Games". It was a good thing that I did, seeing as this book picks right up from where we left off. I am not one for spoilers so I wont give anything important away.

"Catching Fire" seems to run at a quicker pace, which is true of a lot of sequels since all of the character and time period description are taken care of in the first book. There was also a little more romance in this book which (I can't deny), I was totally okay with.

There is also something unique for me with these books. In most novels when the heroine is torn between two love interests (which is basically all the time, in every book ever written), I have a pretty clear idea of which male suitor I prefer and I find myself getting frustrated with the heroine when she can't make up her mind. But in these books, I am on the fence about which guy she should choose. I like them both, for very different reasons, and I can see her happiness with both of them. I am very interested to see what will happen in the end.

This book was captivating from the beginning and kept me entranced until the very last page when I read the cursed last for words of the book,

End of Book Two.

I officially hate those words. The feeling that I felt when I read them was despair, knowing that I have to wait an ENTIRE YEAR for the story to continue. I have had that "I have to know what happens next feeling" ever since I put the book down.

I can't stop thinking about this book. It was so fascinating and the characters truly came to life for me. I have so many questions and it is driving me crazy that I have to wait so long to find out the answers. It is torture that Suzanne Collins decided to end her book right at the climax of the trilogy, but I will admit that even thought it sucks right now, it is going to be so sweet once the third installment comes out. I already can't wait.

If you have not already read, "The Hunger Games" (shame shame), do so now, and then go get "Catching Fire."

Just do it okay.

Finally!

2009-09-01T19:05:00.002-05:00

I have waited a whole long year for this book and it came out today! It's a good thing that I have the day off tomorrow, because I doubt I will be getting much sleep tonight!

4 Years Ago........

2009-08-29T22:42:00.002-05:00

4 years ago, on August 29th 2005, it was the first day of classes at Utah State University.

4 years ago on the top of the stairs outside of the TSC I was approached by a really cute guy.

4 years ago today, I met my husband.

I remember walking home that day with butterflies in my stomach, thinking about the gorgeous guy that came up to talk to me and I hoped that we would end up hanging out. If only I had known on that day what the future held for us.

I love you Justin, and I am eternally glad that you found me on that day!

* A picture of us in our early dating days*

P.S. 20 years ago on this day my baby and only sister was born. Happy 20th birthday Julie! I love you so much!

Gomez and Blind Pilot

2009-08-08T13:11:00.005-05:00

I know that I am way behind in blogging, but I thought I would post about a concert that we went to on Wed the 5th. Justin and I went to go see one of our favorite bands, Gomez, in concert at the Murray Theater. It was his third time seeing them, and my second.

The concert started with a band called Blind Pilot who we had never heard of. They were so good and we have since bought their album and we are in love with it. The album is called "Three Rounds and a Sound". It is really nice and chill. We think that it is kind of Death Cab meets Jack Johnson.

Then Gomez came on and it was amazing! We were in the very front, right up to the stage. They sounded awesome and we loved every minute of it. After the concert was finished they gave out their set lists to a few people up front and I got one of those. Later as we headed outside we walked past the back of the building to get to our car and there were a few members of the band standing in the back doors talking and then one of the lead singers was by our car talking on his cell phone. We discussed going up to them and getting their autographs but we then decided that they were people who just got done working and were just relaxing and we didn't want to go and bug them.

All in all it was a perfect concert! We found a new band that we are really loving, and we got to see one of our favorites up close and hear a lot of our favorite songs. It was an amazing night!

*Sorry the Pics are weak. They are from our phones.*

Blind Pilot

Gomez Pics

Give me an "S"

2009-07-18T19:54:00.021-05:00

That's right, give me an "S" for Slacker. Make that a scarlet "S" while you're at it. Since we arrived in Utah I have been horrible at keeping up with our blog, and it is not because we have been up to nothing, we have actually been quite busy. I am going to attempt to do an update of all the things we have been up to in the end of May, June and up until this point of July.

May

Justin began his internship at LDS hospital and Intermountain Donor Services. He is gone all day and I found out that there are all sorts of interesting things on when you have 300 channels(we had about 10 in Minnesota). Justin is also in heaven because my Grandma is a huge baseball fan and so they have this extra baseball package on TV so we get EVERY single baseball game. Teams play 162 games a year and he actively follows the Dodgers and the Twins. He has never been happier, I have been replaced.

June

* REAL Salt Lake game with a performance by David Archuleta(Justin's favorite part!)

This is my brothers son Kaden.

*Justin had a Mission Reunion. He served in the Ribeirao Preto, Brazil Mission. He has been home for 6 years!

*My hubby turned 27 on June 13th! He is the most wonderful person in this world and I should've devoted an entire post to him but hopefully a few pictures will do. I love you Justin!

He celebrated by going on a hike in the morning with his dogs who adore him. We went to Hamilton's for dinner so he could get a big juicy steak!

*On an incredibly stormy day we went to the Oquirrah Mountain Temple open house. The Temple is absolutely gorgeous and it was a neat experience to go.

* And of course one of my favorite things this summer has been getting to see my nephew Kaden and getting to babysit him.

* One of the highlights of our time in Utah so far was when Justin's dad came home from Iraq, he had been there since January. He came home and we went to dinner with them and then he and my mother in law Carol went to a condo in Park City for a few days. Then all of us kids met up with them in Park City. We had a blast as a family and there was even a big surprise planned. Shawn, Krystal, and Victoria flew in from Maryland and surprised the whole fam(minus me, Justin, and mom). Justin picked them up at the airport and it was pretty exciting when they arrived. Grandpa Brad was sure excited to see his only grandchild.

July

* We kicked off July with a huge Buehler family reunion at the family ranch in Malad Idaho. It was a weekend full of four-wheeling, BBQ eating, catching up, fireworks and loads of fun. Justin's mom also planned an amazing scavenger hunt and a duck race which were so much fun. We had a blast even though we got fried in the sun. It was great to see all the Buehler's again!

The Buehler Cousins

Justin, the dogs, and the beautiful spring.

Check out our burns and Justin's dirty face!

We decorated our ducks for the race. Ninja turtle duck

and Harry Potter Duck.

* On July 9th I turned the ripe old age of 24! I picked Justin up from work and he took me to a park to open presents and got me a piece of red velvet cake. I got spoiled! Then we went to the gateway and shopped a little, then we went and saw "The Proposal" which I loved. After the movie we went to an amazing dinner at P.F. Changs. I dream about their lettuce wraps! It was a great birthday thanks to my wonderful hubby! And when we came home I had another delicious red velvet birthday cake waiting for me thanks to my Grandma and Grandpa! It was a great day!

* The weekend of my birthday I got spoiled yet again. Lets call this my "Logan Birthday". I got another dinner at Callaways(amazing), another birthday cake with Justin's family, and more presents. I am one lucky girl to have so many people celebrate my birthday with me!

(pics of this to come)

*And last but NOT least, my mom and sister just arrived in Utah! We are going to have a lot of fun having lots of girl time.

OH!!!! And my little sis and I went and saw Harry Potter and it was AMAZING! I loved it.

That is all...

I think I am now caught up!

Phew...........

Made it!

2009-05-21T19:51:00.004-05:00

We made it to Utah safe and sound. Our car ran great and we had no complications. The 1300 mile, 2 day trip was pretty long and mostly boring but it is great to be here with family.

On day 1 of our trip we left Minnesota around 9 a.m. and made it to Mount Rushmore in keystone, South Dakota around 6 that night. We did stop along the way at the apparently "World Famous" Wall drug for some free ice water and an amazing homemade doughnut. We stayed at Mt. Rushmore for about 2 hours and then headed to our hotel in Custer, SD for the night.

The next morning we awoke and drove and drove some more. We stopped at Martins cove for a little bit and took in some church history, and finally pulled into the Salt Lake valley around 10 that night. We were welcomed by my Grandparents with a plate of cookies, a gallon of milk for our fridge, and to Justin's delight, baseball on our big flat screen t.v. in our basement apartment.

Our best decision made the entire trip was to download podcasts and listen to them on the way. We downloaded most of them from "The Onion" and "Stuff you should know". It saved our sanity and we really learned a lot of interesting things like why orange juice tastes bad after you brush your teeth, bizarre ways to die, theories on deja vu, interesting facts about Thomas Jefferson, the vikings, when people think the world is going to end, etc.... It was very entertaining and I highly suggest to anyone that is going to be in the car for a long period of time to find a great podcast and download like crazy!

We are currently in Logan at Justin's parents house relaxing with family and seeing some movies. We saw Star Trek last night and it was better then I thought it would be, but there were some pretty nerdy moments. I have no interest in anything Star Trek related but it really did exceed my expectations. I think the super attractive people and awesome special effects may have had something to do with it.

I also went with my sister in law Brittany to see 17 again today. It was SO good. I LOVED it. I think it is one of the cutest movies I have seen in a long time.

We took a ton of pictures and I am going to post them in a little bit. Time is short but I just wanted to post quick to say that we made it to Utah and are happy to be here!

And we're off!

2009-05-16T07:23:00.002-05:00

Well the day has arrived and we are heading to Utah in just a few minutes! We are saying goodbye to our lovely apartment, packing up the car and checking and double checking our list of things to bring!

So long Minnesota.......... for a few months at least.

Dear Mom...

2009-05-12T14:11:00.000-05:00

To my Mother Jane

Dear Mom-

I hope you had a great Mother's Day! I wish we could have been there to celebrate with you! I just wanted to thank you for all the millions of things that you have done for me throughout my life. I do not know where I would be without you. You are my best friend and I am so glad that we have so much in common. I am grateful that I am turning into my mother more and more each day. I would love nothing more then to be the kind of mother that you were to me. You have always been a great example to your children. You have more strength then anyone I know, yet you are tender and comforting. Thank you for always cheering me on and supporting my hopes and dreams. Thank you for always listening, no matter the subject, and thank you for always being interested. You are the first person I want to call when something exciting happens in our life. I miss you every day and wish that we could spend more time together, but hopefully someday we will all be close again. You are my mom and no matter how old I get I will always need you. I can't wait for the day when I become a mother and you can teach me even more. Thanks for all you do for me and Justin. We love and appreciate you so much!

Love, Jessie

To my Mother in law Carol

Dear Mom-

We wish that we could have celebrated Mother's day with you guys. Skype will have to do for now, but only for one more week! We are excited to see you guys soon! I want to personally thank you for the amazing mother you have been to me the past couple years. I also want to thank you for the amazing mother that you have been to Justin for the past 26 years. He would not be the amazing person that he is without such a wonderful mother. He is an incredible person who treats me with such love, kindness, and respect and those are things that boys learn in their homes, from their parents. Thank you for being my mother and taking good care of me when my family was so far away. During my first few years in Logan it was hard to not have my family around but when I met Justin I became part of yours and I thank you for that. You are not just my mother in law, but also my friend. I am so grateful that we have so much in common and that we have such a fun time when we are together. We are so excited for the summer! Thank you again for all you have done for me. I love you so much!

Love, Jess

Justin is off canoeing and camping somewhere around Canada. He says he is going to prove his love and appreciation to you by conquering the great beyond!

Happy (belated) Mother's Day!

Bingo De Mayo!!

2009-05-07T19:44:00.006-05:00

This is a little story of how we celebrated Cinco De Mayo.

The day was uneventful and full of the usual same old routines. Justin went to school and meetings and I went off my job until 9:30. It did not feel like the festive, flavorful day that Cinco De Mayo should be. When I arrived home from work to find Justin in his usual spot at the kitchen table working on homework (a.k.a reading baseball stats on ESPN) we both declared that we were indeed starving and deserved a night out in honor of the aforementioned holiday. Now for those of you that are accustomed to our frugal ways you will not be surprised to learn that we headed off to TGI Fridays for the following reasons.

1) We have a "give me more stripes" rewards card through them and therefore we were emailed a free appetizer for Cinco De Mayo.

2) They have an amazing deal going on where all of their full sized sandwiches and salads are just 5 dollars.

3) In there, "It's always Friday", and that is just the kinda scene we were in the mood for.

We settled ourselves in close proximity to the bar so that we could be close to the t.v's to see what game they had on. It was hockey on every t.v. There was an NBA playoff game on and we were watching hockey. That is Minnesota for you. We ordered the usual waters to drink. After brushing off the deflated look the waitress gave us after ordering non-alcoholic beverages on this Spanish holiday, in the bar area nonetheless, we made things worse by presenting her with our coupon for our free appetizer. Lets just say that we did not see her again for 20 minutes. I know this because I was staring at my watch and giving Justin updates every 5 minutes that went something like this, "I can not believe it has been x minutes and she is not back. This is unacceptable service and I should know since I have so much serving experience...........". Poor Justin, this went on until she finally returned after our appetizer (that was brought to us by someone else) had been long gone and our beverages were no more then ice cubes. We gave her our order which was one salad to share. Take that server girl.

In all honesty I was irritated, and that is putting it nicely. Her service to us should be no less just because we are trying eat out on a budget. Our meal was finally brought to us, yet again by someone else, and we were ready for it, forks in hand.

Now this is the part of our story where a little thing called Karma comes into play.

The night had not been great so far. It was almost 11p.m. and we were just eating our dinner, but just then a funny thing happened. I found something in my food, yet again. If you do not know what I am talking about, please refer back to this post. It was an expiration date sticker, and to make things even better the expiration date was yesterday. Now to us this was no big deal. It was a only a piece of paper and lets face it, we eat way more questionable things out of our own fridge all the time. But when that "waitress" came to ask us how our meal was we let her know that there was a sticker in it. For the first time all night I saw a glimpse of humanity spark from her as she apologized and went to get things taken care of. Right after she left there was an announcement made that Bingo would be starting soon. We LOVE Bingo. We suck at Bingo but we love it still. A guy came over and asked us if we wanted to play, and when we discovered that it was free, of course we were in.

Our waitress came back and explained that our salad would be of no charge and gave us a coupon for a free appetizer or dessert on our next visit. We were still hungry so we ordered another salad. By this time, bingo was starting, we were eating a fresh new sticker free salad and the world seemed right again.

Then Justin won bingo. Thats right my friends, Karma. And what was the prize? Cold, hard, cash. It would've been 20 bucks but another person called Bingo as well so we won 10 dollars. We were happy as could be with our great meal and prize money, could the night get any better? Yes. Justin won round 2 of Bingo. We couldn't believe it. We won another coupon for a free appetizer or dessert. We played 3 more rounds and even though we didn't win, it no longer mattered. Like a 4 year old on a soccer team, we were just playing for fun.

Lets do a little recap shall we?

Waters- Free

Appetizer- Free

Salad- 5 dollars plus sticker makes it free

New Salad- 5 dollars (I don't think she should've charged us for a replacement salad but I was beyond caring when we got our bill)

That makes a total of 5 dollars.

But wait...........

Free appetizer for sticker in salad

10 dollars in Bingo winnings

Free appetizer for Bingo winning

That makes a pretty nice profit if you ask me!

So don't worry kids, if you find yourself stuck on Cinco De Mayo with an awful waitress who shuns you for being cheap and refuses to refresh your measly waters, Karma will step in and strategically place a sticker in your food and then it will go the extra mile and allow you to win Bingo twice.

Thank you Karma and happy belated Cinco De Mayo!

*Note from Justin*

He is sorry he forgot to wish you all a happy Star Wars Day....

May the 4th be with you.

Get it?

I Spy something in my food.

B I N G O

Winner Winner!

Wednesday's Read

2009-05-06T03:05:00.003-05:00

Hello All! I hope you are all having a fabulous day. Once again I am here with another book recommendation. Today the book holding the honor is "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Borrows. What a name right, don't you just love it! I do.

This novel is the story of an author who is looking for inspiration for her next novel and by chance becomes aquatinted with some of the residents of the Island of Guernsey. The story is told through letters between the characters, but don't let that turn you off. It is also somewhat historical fiction as it takes place shortly after WWII and makes references to the German occupation of the island during the war, but don't let that turn you off either. I know for some like myself, novels that are told strictly through letters are not my thing but this novel was different somehow. I enjoyed reading the letters between the new friends and the old friends too. I enjoy historical fiction but I know that some out there don't, but even though there are WWII references throughout the novel, it is a lighthearted read that is positive and that tries to look to the future after such devastation.

This is a very charming story that is sweet and lighthearted with mild doses of inspiring moments. There are also great historical references and very lovable characters. It was not the most unique novel I have ever read, but it was a very enjoyable and witty read. I really liked the main character, Susan Ashton, and found myself rooting for her. I also found myself wanting to move to Guernsey and join the literary society so that I could meet all the wonderful characters in person and discuss my favorite novels over a slice of potato peel pie with them.

The one word I keep coming back to to describe this book is Charming. Read this if you want to read a book that makes you laugh, learn a little history, and that makes you realize why you love books all over again.

The Last Hurrah

2009-05-05T13:34:00.008-05:00

On Friday the 1st we had a BBQ at a park with our friends. It was our last get together before we part ways for the Summer, some of us temporarily and some of us permanently. It was a "little" chilly (okay it was a lot chilly) but that didn't stop the boys from running around like crazy and playing football. Will was being a bear and having fun looking for sticks. Most of us girls were trying to keep our toes warm.

We have been very fortunate to have made such wonderful friends being far away from family. It is so wonderful that being a member of the church gives you an instant connection with people who have the same goals and values. These "MHA Mormons" have have been such a great group to be out here with and we will miss them as we begin to go our separate ways.

Scott and Kara and their little boy Will are done with school and moving to Ohio. We will miss you guys (especially Will's stories and animal facts) but we are excited for you.

Brian and Joni and their boys are moving to Boise. We will miss them and their adorable boys but we are excited that they will be a lot closer to family and done with school.

Ryan and Angie and their baby have one year left and are staying here for the summer. He did the MBA as well.

Ryan and Annie C are also staying here for the summer and have one year left.

Dave and Natalie will be with us out in Salt Lake. When they come back they have one more year.

Ben and Melissa are headed out to Oregon for the summer. He is also doing the MBA so they will be out here for 2 more years with us.

We will miss those of you that are moving away for good, and we will see you in the fall for those of us that are coming back. Thanks for the good times guys!

*click to enlarge

The Girls- We are missing Kara and Joni :(

The Boys (it was harder then you may think to get them to take a good picture!)

Happy NSD!!!!

2009-05-02T18:19:00.002-05:00

I hope you are all having a great NSD and doing something fun to celebrate! Wait.... you don't know what NSD is? It is National Scrapbooking Day! To celebrate my WONDERFUL husband let me do a little splurging and I got this

- Photos from the Quickutz Facebook page (yes I am aware that I am friends with a scrapbooking company on Facebook).

It is the "Reuse" limited edition Quickutz gift set and it is oh so cute! I also spent the day hosting one of the free projects at our "Make and Take" weekend at my work (Archiver's) to celebrate National Scrapbooking Weekend. So if you have not done so yet, make something creative and eat a piece of cake to celebrate the wonderful art of scrapbooking!

Now I actually want to eat some cake.

I LOVE cake!

p.s. Emma- The "Flirt" set totally reminds me of you every time I see it. You have to check it out. Go here.

Top Chef

2009-04-29T12:09:00.004-05:00

Have you ever seen Top Chef? If your answer is no then you are missing out. It is this awesome cooking competition on the Bravo network. Justin and I LOVE it and have seen every season. We always talk about how we wish we could make some of the things they make, and how we don't even know what most of the things they make are. Last week for Family Home Evening Justin planned it and decided that we were going to make crepes and watch Top Chef. I know a lot of you are thinking that crepes are not that big of a deal but neither of us had ever made a crepe before and the name alone sounded pretty fancy to us! It takes a little playing around to make a really good crepe but I think Justin really mastered it. So we made our crepes and watched Top Chef. And if the competition would have been down to me and Justin, I think Padma would have said, "Jessica, please pack your knives and go."

Strawberries and fresh whipped cream

Egg and cheese

Powdered sugar

One of Justin's lovely crepes

The crepe extraordinaire.

Wednesday's Read

2009-04-22T22:59:00.004-05:00

This installment of Wednesday's read is going to be different then the previous ones. I have been on a reading kick as of late and so there were too many books on my mind and it was too difficult to just pick out one for this week. So, I am going to give a brief review on the books that I have read in the last 2 weeks. Enjoy!

"The Giver" by Lois Lowry. I LOVED this book. I don't know how I had never read this before, but I am really glad that I finally did. It is sweet and thought provoking and a very easy read. I think it is a book that teaches lessons while being intriguing. This is a book that would appeal to many different people of all ages. I also love the cover art. It is just how I pictured the Giver to be in my head.

"The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss. I really really liked this book. It was different then I thought it would be but I enjoyed it. It was clever and unique. It was heartbreaking and heartwarming. I loved the characters in this novel. I feel like you get to know them and they seem very real. There were also a few surprising turns that i did not see coming. This is one of those books that makes you feel.

"The London Eye Mystery" by Sibohan Dowd. This is the story of a young boy with Aspergers syndrome whose cousin goes missing and uses his unique brain to try and solve the mystery. This book was okay. I think it was a little young for me (it is a YA book) but it was a quick and easy read. I actually didn't figure out the mystery before the Author revealed it, but it never quite got me hooked. Maybe I would've liked it if I were a little younger. So I am giving this one a good, not great.

The Gemma Doyle Trilogy aka "A Great and Terrible Beauty", "Rebel Angels", and "The Sweet Far Thing."

I have conflicting feelings on this trilogy.

I read all three books in about 5 days which is saying something because they are pretty thick novels. So it would appear that I was hooked right? In some ways...Yes. But in other ways not so much. There were parts that I LOVED, and parts that were not so great. I thought that the first book was just good, not great. I did not love it but was intrigued enough to want to finish the series. I really enjoyed the second book and loved some of the third book and hated some of the third book. The parts I enjoyed were the parts that take place in the real world at the boarding school and the social events. I was not at all crazy about the magical, "out of this world" parts. At some parts I felt I was just reading it quickly to get back to the good stuff. I also did not like some of the themes that are woven into these novels, especially in the last book. I am glad that I read them, and there truly were parts that I loved. But there were also some definite"not so sure about that" moments too. So I guess if magic and Victorian Gothic and boarding schools and balls are your thing, give this trilogy a try.

All in all I read some great books, and all of the books made me think, feel, and took me to places that only a good book can.

If any of you have read any of these and have anything to add, please comment and let me know your thoughts on these books.

MBA "Up CLose" Weekend

2009-04-16T12:09:00.005-05:00

I have been lacking in keeping up with what we have been up to. I have a few things to post about before I am totally caught up and this is one of them.

The weekend of April 3rd, 4th, and 5th the MBA program had a weekend called "close up" that we attended. We soon discovered that the purpose of this weekend was so schmooze and get those undecided students to officially accept admissions into the Carlson School of Management. The weekend was AMAZING! They put us up in a hotel for 2 nights and (non-alcoholic) wined and dined us.

The weekend started off early Friday for Justin. He went to a breakfast and some other informative things while I was at work. Then he went on a tour of the General Mills headquarters. He really liked it and learned a lot of cool facts about General Mills.

- The Headquarters.

After the corporate visit they went to the campus for presentations on the program and tours and all that fun stuff. I met up with Justin at the school for a nice catered dinner with some speakers and lots of handshaking and introductions. The dinner was really good. I even ate some wild mushroom ravioli and didn't hate it (even though I hate mushrooms).

After dinner we went and checked into our awesome hotel. We stayed at the Aloft- (pronounced A-Loft with a hard A, not as the word aloft as we thought). The hotel was so cool. It is very modern. The lobby looked like some really cool lounge/bar and they had all these big screens and pool tables and a Wii and games everywhere like life sized jenga and this huge connect four board. They put out tator tots and chips and salsa for everyone to munch on while they mingled. It was pretty awesome.

When we got into our room there was this big Carlson MBA tote full of goodies for us. There were shirts. mugs, pens, candy, a business card holder, info on the cities and our favorite, coupons for free drinks at the bar in the lobby.

Part of the lobby

(pics from the Aloft website)

The next day we went back to our house for a little bit to watch some of General Conference. Then I had to go to work and there was a bus tour of the city that we were bummed to miss (we love tours...serisously we really do).

When I got home we got all dolled up and went to the Mill City Museum. The museum was once a thriving flour mill that exploded, was rebuilt and then when General Mills moved was inhabited by some homeless people that burned it down. Minneapolis was once the milling district of the US. We learned some really interesting things at the museum. They also have a "flour tower" tour that takes you to the top of the tower and you can get out and look over the falls and the river and the city. The event was after hours so we had the whole place to ourselves. Then we had a really nice dinner there. It was seriously some of the best food I have ever had in my life. Even after he was full Justin kept eating because the food was so good and he knew he was not going to eat like that for a long time. It was a great night!

Then it was back to the hotel for some more fun. It was a GREAT weekend of great food, awesome hotels and events and meeting a lot of great people that Justin will be seeing a lot of in the years to come.

The Reester Bunny came!

2009-04-13T15:05:00.009-05:00

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! We sure did! Our Easter started with sleeping in a little and then heading to Stake Conference. It was a conference for all of the Midwest states. We were fortunate to hear some wonderful talks and President Monson spoke at the end. It was a wonderful way to start off our Easter.

Here is something interesting that I learned while at Stake conference. Minnesota is getting a new stake and so they had these handouts in the foyer that talked about it. Guess how many stakes Minnesota currently has. 7. SEVEN stakes in the entire state. And there are only 83 wards in the ENTIRE state. And Minnesota is a pretty big state. Crazy huh. I thought so. Anyway......

When we came home we had an Easter egg hunt. I love Justin to pieces, but he can't hide eggs worth a darn. And not to brag, but I was kinda awesome at hiding eggs for Justin. He only found one on his own without hints from me.

This is how Justin hides eggs. In obvious places that require no searching.

(just so you know, I also hid an egg in that plant, but it was down in all the grass. I also hid an egg on that shelf, but it was in that black and white vase.)

This is how Jessica hides eggs. In concealed places, sometimes covered by fried onions, that require much searching.

The egg hunt was a lot of fun though. Who says you have to be a kid to look for eggs?

Here are some more pictures from our hunt.

(click to enlarge)

Justin found a real egg on the hunt and got a little overexcited!

After the hunt the Easter Bunny paid a visit and we revealed our Easter baskets. Right when we uncovered them we couldn't stop laughing. You see, the Easter bunny clearly knows our taste in t.v. shows because he brought us both the same exact thing! It was pretty funny. Things like that happen to us all the time. I think we just might be meant for each other.

Happy Easter!

And in case you were wondering, the title of this post comes from the "Reester" bunnies I received in my basket. They are Reese's peanut butter bunnies. Is that not the best name for a candy ever?! I thought so.

After all of the festivities we had a delicious dinner of ham, green bean casserole, rolls and for desert we had a fresh banana cream pie. After dinner we took a nice little walk and then we chilled and watched t.v. It was a great Easter!

We also wanted to thank our Moms for the Easter cards and goodies. Thanks for thinking of us while we are far away! We LOVE you!

Chicago-Day numero dos

2009-04-09T15:36:00.008-05:00

I am FINALLY posting about our second day in Chicago. Sorry that took forever! We have been pretty busy and I have more fun stuff to blog about but that will have to wait until I get some older posts done! So here it is........ Chicago....Day 2

On day 2 of our Chicago trip we all awoke and went to breakfast at an awesome little place called the corner bakery and it was delish. After breakfast the boys went to a lecture and me and Natalie went back to our room where we then took another nap. It was awesome! When they were done Justin and I decided to venture off downtown to do a little shopping. We went to none other than our favorite store Banana Republic. Chicago has the biggest BR that I have ever been to. It is 4 levels! Much to our dismay we left empty handed. No awesome deals, which is all we can afford! It was fun nonetheless. After a little more wandering we met up with Nat and Dave and went into the American Girl store. The boys just loved it......oh wait that was me and Natalie. Correction- the boys looked embarrassed and stood in one spot the whole time. It was pretty awesome even though we were only there for 10 minutes.

We then decided to go to the top of the John Hancock building but we didn't want to pay a ton so we decided to just casually go to the restaurant on the top floor and look around. Lets just say there was a not so friendly hostess who loved to give Dave an evil eye. Lets also say that after we tried to be more sneaky, the elevator opened up 2 more times and we were all just standing there trying to look innocent as we waited for the doors to close.

This is Me Natalie and Dave in the back of a cab.

After that we headed to our final destination of the trip. We all went to the Shedd Aquarium. The Aquarium was awesome. I loved it! My not so favorite part was the anaconda. I don't think that it helped my phobia of snakes.

Here is a collage of my favorite pics.

(click the collage to see the pics better)

Here is the awesome view of Chicago from the front of the Aquarium.

After the aquarium we went to dinner at the coolest place called Eleven which was so good. And then it was to the airport and back home. We had such a great time getting away for a few days.

The End

Wednesday's Read

2009-04-08T17:40:00.004-05:00

I have been doing a LOT of reading this past week. And I mean a LOT! This past week I read 4 books, and from those 4 I have chose "Stargirl" to be the read for this week. Stargirl is written by Jerry Spinelli and is the story of a girl in the 10th grade who calls her self (you guessed it) Stargirl. She is eccentric, friendly, and compassionate. It is her story through the eyes of a boy named Leo. This book is short and easy to read, and it is worth it. Although it is a simple story, it has a deep message and it made me think about what is important. I find myself worried from time to time about what other people think, and that worry can sometimes alter actions that I know are best. Stargirl does not worry about those things and follows her heart. I admit that I want to be more like that. Stargirl is funny and very sweet and will hopefully leave you a little bit changed for the better.

The (very) Windy City- Part One

2009-03-31T15:23:00.011-05:00

Last week we ventured off to Chicago so Justin could attend the ACHE conference. It stands for American College of Healthcare Executives. Justin, Dave, Ben, Ryan and Scott (all in our ward and MHA students) all went to the conference and Natalie and I tagged along to go play in the city. Our trip started on Tuesday the the 24th. We left early in the morning for the airport and flew into Chicago at about 8. We stayed at the Hilton is Chicago, it was VERY nice. Our room had two bathrooms in it! I could not get over it! The boys all looked so nice in their suits and looked like actual business men as they checked in to the hotel.

The boys stayed at the hotel for their conference and Natalie and I went out to explore the city. We first went over to Millennium Park to check out the sculptures. There was the lovely art with the huge moving faces of chicago natives

Then we went over and checked out the "bean". It is this really cool sculpture that reflects you and the skyline of the city. We had fun taking pictures there.

Try to spot Natalie and I in the pictures. Hint: I am wearing blue.

After the park we headed to the "Magnificent Mile" to do some shopping. We found some lovely little treasures along the way. There was this huge foam sculpture of the famous painting "American Gothic"

and as we were walking down the street Natalie got this look on her face and was like look at that window! This is what I saw

but as we walked past the window you could see in the hole and we went from being grossed out, to laughing our behinds off. This is what the free peep show turned out to be.

Behind the other holes there were little scenes set up with peeps as characters. It was pretty fun and it totally made our day.

We spent the next few hours shopping, but mostly trying on funny things and laughing way too hard. Here we are pimping out some awesome headbands at Forever 21. Do people actually wear these things?? Cause I think we totally pull them off.

As we were out in the city we realized why they call it the WINDY city. At one point the wind was so bad that we were walking all hunched over with all of our strength because the wind was so strong it was pushing us back. It didn't help that we couldn't stop laughing. Lets just say that our hair was awesome and more then a little tangled after that.

After lots and LOTS of walking around we met back up with the boys to grab some lunch. After lunch at an awesome little deli we took them back to Millennium park. Here are a few more pics.

On our way over to the park the funniest thing happened. We were all walking down the street and this guy comes up to us with a cup asking us for donations for the poor. We were kinda walking past him and he was like come on aren't you guys LDS. We were all shocked. He saw four clean cut boys in suits and thought they were Missionaries or something. It was funny.

After all that we went back to the hotel. The boys went to more meetings and Natalie and I watched Rachel Ray and took a nap. It was awesome. Then they boys came back and we all went out and got some Chicago deep dish. We all had a blast at dinner. The food was great, the company was hilarious, and I don't think I stopped laughing the entire time.

Here is the group. Justin, Me, Ryan, Natalie, Dave, Scott and Ben.

Please check out Ryan's face. It made me laugh for at least 10 minutes when I saw this picture!

After dinner the boys went to some receptions at the hotel and Natalie and I were going to go sit in the hot tub, but we ended up getting in our pjs and watched the biggest loser and dancing with the stars. When the boys came back we all had some girl talk and watched basketball. It was a great and LONG day. This post is getting long so I will post day 2 of our trip tomorrow. It is mostly pictures from the Shedd Aquarium so check back tomorrow.

27 Years

2009-03-19T16:28:00.002-05:00

1982

2009

Happy Anniversary to my Mom and Dad. 27 years ago they were married in the Jordan River Temple.

Now today, 4 kids, 2 weddings, 1 son in law, 1 daughter in law, and one grandbaby later they are still in love and happy as ever.

Guess where we are moving......

2009-03-17T15:32:00.004-05:00

For Justin's MHA program he is required to get a summer residency. He filled out tons of applications and has done interviews and we waited and waited to see where we would end up for the summer. With the economy the way it is, it has been a hard year for the residency program. We figured that with the circumstances that we would most likely have to stay here and find somewhere but on a hope and a prayer Justin applied for a residency at LDS hospital. We really wanted to be in Utah and we would LOVE to have Justin work for Intermountain Health Care. Well..... He got it! We will be moving to UTAH this May as Justin completes a residency for LDS Hospital and Intermountain Donor Services. We are SOOOOO excited to be going back home and be close to family and friends! We are very grateful for this opportunity and I know that Justin is going to do an amazing job. He is such a hard worker and IHC is lucky to have him!

Utah here we come!!!!!!

What's one more Year?

2009-03-14T17:58:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to Justin for being accepted into the MBA program at the Carlson School of Management. What this means for us is that we will stay in Minnesota for an additional year. We are really excited about this opportunity and we really are loving Minnesota and we are excited to have another year here. So here's looking to the year 2011!

Winners!!

2009-03-14T00:37:00.002-05:00

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

14 2

Timestamp: 2009-03-14 05:36:35 UTC

Comment 14

Alanya/Ally said...

Leaving another love comment! Thanks for always posting!!! Got to run... Enrichment starting soon... also working on burning 75 CD's for the primary! Ah!!!

Comment 2

Jane said...

Sending love your way!!! Can we be related to you and still win??? Here's more LOVE!!!

Congratulations to you both! I picked these numbers by using the random integer generator at random.org. Thank you all for leaving comments! I love to hear what you have to say.

And to my winners..... send me an e-mail at jesso22@yahoo.com with what you would like and with your address (if I don't already know it) and I will get you your winnings!

Wednesday's Read

2009-03-11T22:58:00.001-05:00

Once upon a time I was a Junior in high school and I had to read "To Kill A Mockingbird" in my honors Literature class. From that day on it has been one of my favorite novels and I own it and have read it about 5 times. I was recently reunited with it again as it is the book for this month for my wards book club. It is one of those books that I just assume that everyone has read and I am surprised when I realize that not everyone has read this amazing story!

I have been surprised to learn that "To Kill a Mockingbird" was Harper Lees only published novel, and not only was it her only novel, but it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and in 1999 was called the best novel of the century by the Library Journal. Have I convinced any of you yet that have not read this?

To give you a quick plot that contains no spoilers, the story is about a family, Atticus Finch is the father and he is raising his two children on his own Jem and Scout. Scout is the main character, she is a tom boy and very mischievous. They live in Alabama during a time of depression and racism. Atticus is a lawyer, and one of my favorite characters in any novel ever written. The story follows Scout and her adventures, troubles, and life lessons learned. Many have said that the novel was an autobiographical piece and that there are many similarities between this and Harper Lees life. In fact her best friend Dill is said to be based after her real life friend Truman Capote. This story has great symbolism and depth. This is one of those great novels that takes you on a journey where you laugh, cry, feel scared and excited and most of all it makes you think. Every time I read this, I realize again why I love it so much. It is one of my all time favorite books and I think everyone should at least read this once (if not the 20 or more times I will most likely read it in my life).

I think one of the reasons that I love this novel so much is that I first read it when I was about 16 and it made a huge impression on me. It is one of the reasons why I love reading so much. I know that it is always a book that I can turn to. I hope that if you have not read it (gasp) that you will give this one a shot. Even if it doesn't change your life, it will make you think and it will make you feel.

I know a lot of you out there have read this? Do you love it as much as I do? It's okay if you don't........really.

What have you been doin lately?

2009-03-10T07:11:00.001-05:00

So I have not really blogged about what we have been up to as of late. Mostly Justin studies and works and goes to school (sleep, arise, repeat) day after day, and I usually work and run errands and occupy myself with television, internet and books while the hubby studies. However we have had some fun little adventures mixed in there too.

* We went to the Minnesota vs. Wisconsin game with Dave and Nat last week. Before the game we went to an awesome little pizza joint called "Mesa". They had really unique pizza. I had mac and cheese pizza (amazing) and Justin had philly cheese steak pizza. Dave had southwest taco pizza and Nat had the ever surprising cheese ( she lives on the edge!) It was really yummy. Then we headed over to the game to watch the Golden Gophers battle their big rivals the Badgers! Quite the ferocious prairie dwelling mascots we have here in the Midwest eh? It was an incredible game, we almost lost it at the end but pulled through with a big win! It was a fun night and we had a blast with the Henriksons.

* Justin had been working incredibly hard with a group on a case for his Clarion competition. Clarion is a prestigious competition where if you are chosen, you work in a team of 4 chosen from Administration, Medical, Pharmacy, and Nursing students on a medical case. You prepare a presentation and present in front of a board. They choose the top 3 out of 9 groups and they are awarded prize money and fame! Justin was in a group and so were Dave Henrikson and Ben Smalley, some of our friends in our ward. All the boys worked REALLY hard on their cases and even though their groups didn't win I am proud of them all! It is an accomplishment to just have worked on a Clarion Case. The awards ceremony was held at the coolest restaurant I have ever been to. It is called the Loring Pasta Bar. We had incredible appetizers and there was an open bar so we drank Shirley Temples until we could drink no more. The dinner was delicious and the key note speaker was really interesting to listen to. It was a great night out and Nat and I told the boys that even though they didn't win, at least their months of hard work got them a free nice date with their wives! Totally worth it right? I think so. Justin is still on the fence about it.

* We finally went and saw Taken, which everyone said was good. It was pretty intense. I hope that if we ever make it to Paris that I do not get kidnapped by the Albanians. It does not look like fun! We also got "Hancock" from netflix. Some people told me that they did not like it. I really liked it! I thought it was a really good movie. Our other Netflix recent activity includes the new Brian Regan DVD "The Epitome of Hyperbole". Sooooo funny! We love that guy! We also recently saw "Henry Poole is Here." I am not so sure about that one. It was not bad, it was not great. It just was. It surprised me by being kinda religious and such. We have also been watching the first season of "How I met your Mother" that my parents gave us in our Valentines Day package. That is a funny show. And for all of you judgy types...... we really are busy and we really are not lazy but seriously, it is freezing here and in the little bit a free time that we get together we decide to chillax and watch some shows. So judge away, but leave us, our netflix, and our bowls of ice cream out of it.

* We have been recently reunited with an old friend. The Sun. We never thought we would see you again. Thank you for melting away the piles of snow in our parking lot. Thank for allowing me to not wear my puffy coat today. We have missed you a lot! Stick around this time okay!

* We bought a new bookshelf tonight that only took Justin 1.5 hours and me 2 friends episodes and the Leno monologue to get through. It is so lovely and I am really excited about it! It is made of mostly REAL wood. That is something to get excited about since the majority of our furniture is made of particle board. We are quite the grown ups now aren't we. Slowly phasing out our college pieces with actual furniture!

Other then that, work and my church callings are going well. Justin is doing great with work and school and his calling. We are still loving Minnesota and having a great time together and with friends.

That is all from us!

Seacrest Out!

(I am soooo excited about the top 13 this year on American Idol!)

(okay, now I am done!)

( seriously)

100th Post!!! (and a giveaway!)

2009-03-05T15:40:00.004-06:00

This is officially my 100th post!

I started this blog about a year and a half ago, but it wasn't until about 7 months ago that I REALLY started blogging. I LOVE to blog! I think blogging is a great medium to share ones daily musings, thoughts on the world, and photos so those that are far away can see how lovely we are. Justin and I moved from Utah to Minnesota almost 7 months ago for school. We are equally 20 hours away from our family in Utah, and our family in Virginia. This had been such a great way to make sure that our moms know that we are alive and well. We love seeing pictures of our nephew and niece and siblings and parents on their blogs, and we love catching up and seeing friends both old and new in the blogging realm.

I just want to give a shout out to those of you who read our blog and leave us awesome comments! It is great to hear your opinions and kind words and thoughts.

In honor of this being the 100th post, and in honor of the few that may actually follow this blog, I am going to do our very first blog giveaway.

You will have three items to choose from if you win.

I have been a little sick for the past couple days and whenever I am sick I feel like watching some of my favorite movies. These are movies I used to always watch with my mom when I was little, so in honor of all these great movies, I chose 2 that you can pick from. They are,

And since of course I love scrapbooking, you can also have the choice of one of my favorite tools ever. The Xyron sticker Maker!

This little guy will turn anything into a sticker. I think that even if you don't scrapbook, but have kids at home that this is a great little tool!

All of the items are brand new and once drawn the winner will have their choice of the above mentioned items.

So what do you have to do to win? You have to leave us some comment love. And that is all. I know there are people who read this blog that I don't know or that I do know, but I don't know they read it. This would be a great time to leave me a comment and let me know who you are and possibly win something! So don't be shy, let us know who you are!!

You can leave one comment per day until Friday March 13th at 12 p.m. central time. Then I will pick a random number, maybe even 2 and post the winner/s on Saturday the 14th. So leave us a comment every day to increase your chances!

Good Luck and thanks again for reading our blog and sending us some love while we are out here in Minnesota!

Utah Jazz- The One where Andrei Kirilenko has a really cool beanie.

2009-02-25T23:32:00.012-06:00

Tonight Justin and I met up with some of our friends in the ward who are big Utah Jazz fans like us and went to the Jazz vs. Timberwolves game. We were all cheering for the Jazz even though we live in Minnesota, Jeff even had his Jazz Jersey on. There were a lot more Jazz fans there than I thought there would be. We had GREAT lower bowl seats. It was the closest I have ever sat at an NBA game! You could actually hear the players talking, it sure beats the nose bleeds at the Delta Center. The game was awesome and the Jazz pulled through with a win in the end. All in all it was a great night........... But wait, there is more!

As we were leaving to walk to the bus stop (yay for public transportation) we had to walk around the back of the Target Center (where the Timberwolves play) and we saw this big bus with some security and we were like, "Do you think that is the Jazz bus?" We decided to wait for a second and see if anyone came out and sure enough out came Mehmut Okur. He stopped and took a picture with us. We were soooo excited and we decided to wait to see who else came out. It was just Jeff, Jessica, Myself and Justin, a family that just moved from Utah with their 4 kids, and these 3 guys who you could tell were just looking for autographs to sell on ebay. One by one sure enough we got to see and take pictures with everyone from the Jazz, with the exception of Carlos Boozer. After a while we just got too cold to wait around any longer. It was seriously the most awesome night ever! This was a one in a million chance, and living in Utah we never would have got to have this experience. It pays to be a Jazz fan in Minnesota eh?

Behold........ The Glorious Pictures!

The View From Our Seats!

The creepy mascot "Crunch" who does not wear pants. What is up with that?

Me and Justin after the game.

Me and Memo

Jess, Andrei Kirilenko and me. Her husband Jeff went on a mission to Russia and they exchanged some words in Russian. It was pretty funny.

Me and Justin in front of the bus, waiting to see some more players!

Paul Millsap

Ronnie Brewer signing a ball for the Utah family.

Me, Justin and Deron Williams. We LOVE him!

And last but certainly NOT least! Ladies feast your eyes on this!

Yes that is me and the sharply dressed Kyle Korver!

We didn't take pictures of everyone we saw, although I was tempted to snap a pic with Craig Bolerjack and Ron Boone!

We had the best night ever! It was once in a lifetime and a night we wont soon forget! We sure love the Jazz and we miss being able to watch them play EVERY game. I don't think we missed more then 1 or 2 games last season. It was fun to see them play live out here in the frozen tundra of Minnesota.

The number one comment by almost every one tonight, "Man it is cold here!"

Yes Jazz players, yes it is!

Oh and 5 extra points to those of you that got the "Friends" reference in my title.

(5 imaginary points that is).

Tagged

2009-02-22T23:41:00.005-06:00

I have never done a tag in all of my blogging but I was tagged by Cousin's Megan and Chad, and Paul and Allison. Okay guys here is our list!

" 8 Things"

8 TV Shows We Watch

1- The Office

2- Arrested Development(it is cancelled but we have them on DVD)

3- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

4- 24

5- Project Runway

6- Top Chef

7- Wheel of Fortune

8- Flight of the Conchords

8 Things that Happened Yesterday

1- We had a big "Make and Take" event at my work and I taught one of the projects

2- Justin was in a 4 hour meeting in the morning. Yay for Saturday's!

3- We went grocery shopping at target and scored some clearance Valentines candy. I got a cupid pez dispenser!

4- We bought a memory card for our new Canon Rebel!

5- We went out to dinner at the olive garden (thanks again mom for the gift card at Christmas)

6- We waddled back to the car after the above mentioned meal.

7- Scraped lots and lots of snow off the car. It snowed about 5 inches!

8- Bought an early edition Sunday newspaper so that I can have my coupons and score big at CVS!

8 of Our Favorite Places to Eat

1- P.F. Changs

2- The Spaghetti Factory

3- Rodizio Grill

4- Taco Bell

5- The local bar scene....seriously! Bar food is great!

6- Olive Garden

7- Arby's

8- Anywhere that we have a coupon to. That usually decides where we eat.

Here is a funny side note. In less then a week we ate at 4 of the aforementioned locations. We really never eat out but we went to the Spaghetti Factory on Valentines day with a 10 dollar gift card, P.F. Changs for our Anniversay, Sallys Bar with a buy one get one free coupon on Friday and Olive Garden on Saturday with a gift card.

*Disclaimer- I promise we never eat out 2 days in a row but I worked from 8 a.m. until dinner time both nights and it we actually only paid for one meal this weekend!

Okay so here are 4 people that I tag

1- Jordan(maybe if enough people tag him he will do it)

2- Shawn and Krystal

3-Scott and Emma A

4- Daniel and Amanda B

Anniversary, The Bachelor, and the Cold stone Dilemma.

2009-02-20T19:54:00.003-06:00

So this post is a random compilation of a few things.

Thing one- Our Anniversary.

On the 17th we celebrated being married for 2 years and still loving each other. Justin surprised me with an overnight getaway at a resort a little south of the city. We LOVE to get away overnight and stay at a hotel so it was awesome. We went to dinner at P.F. Changs which I decided is one of my new favorites. Seriously people have you tried their lettuce wraps. TO DIE FOR! Later that night we got all cozy in our hotel bed and popped some bubbly (aka sparkling pear cider from ikea) and toasted to 2 years while we watched our wedding video I love that video. I love seeing how happy we were on that day. There is not one shot of me without the biggest grin on my face!

My gift to Justin, was a scrapbook/storybook with pictures and it is basically "our story" starting from the day we met to being married for 2 years. And what else did we get you may be asking yourselves..... okay probably not but I am really excited so I am going to tell you anyway. We got a Canon Rebel SLR Camera. I am so excited to have such a nice camera. Now I just need to learn how to use it.

Our Anniversary was great! We had so much fun spending the day together, buying new dishes at ikea, going to the mall of america, and playing at our hotel and going to lunch and dinner. Thanks again for spoiling me as always babe!

Thing 2- The Bachelor

Okay so I am taking a giant leap here. Up until very recently I had never seen an episode of the bachelor and I thought people who were addicted to that show were so lame. But I like to watch free tv shows online while I scrapbook or do other things in the house. While browsing the shows ABC had to offer I decided to see what this stupid show was all about and......... well I kinda sorta got totally hooked. But the reason for this post is not to admit to something I am a tad bit ashamed of, but it is to tell Jason ( the bachelor, we are on a first name basis since I practically feel like I know him) that he is dumb. Why oh why did you send Jillian home? She was gorgeous and so funny and lively and down to earth. She has a great family and an adorable canadian accent. What is not to love here people? And I am sorry but Melissa just seems sooooo fake and tan and stuck in her cheerleading days. And you know something is up with her family. She says she is close to them but then admits that they never came to watch her cheer and have never been there for her and things. That is messed up. And molly... wipe that fake smile off your preppy little face my dear. Her dad taught her that crying is unacceptable and that only winners are accepted and there is just something about her that seems arrogant and fake. I just don't see either of them as mature and fit to become a mom over night. I don't know, but frankly if you are weird enough to go on a tv show to find a wife, then I guess they all deserve each other.

Thing 3- The Cold Stone Dilemma

Cold stone creamery. Known for their unique flavors, plentiful mix ins, and incompetent staff. That is right, you heard me... incompetent.

Flash back to late last fall. Justin and I needed a few little gifts for a friend and a gift exchange and all that sort of stuff so we decided to go to cold stone and get some gift cards. We went in and told the girl at the register that we would like some 5 dollar gift cards. So what did she do? She handed us a bunch of gift cards off the counter and said here you go. We said something along the lines of, " Um... don't you need to put money on these first?" She was like "oh yeah sorry" and took the cards and charged us. She gave us our receipt and we were on our way. Some of the cards were distributed but a few weeks ago we found the last gift card that never got passed out. We went in to cold stone tonight to get ourselves a treat and use the gift card. The girl at the register tried running it through a couple times and said that there was nothing on it, the card had never been activated. I instantly felt sick! I started thinking of all the people that we had given cards to in our very same situation hearing that there was no money on the card. We bought our overpriced ice cream and left. On the way home I started making some phone calls to those who we gave some cards to and miraculously their cards worked, (or they are being way too nice and lying to me). As we went down the list we still had one gift card remaining that we could not remember where it went. Then after a little while it finally hit me. It was part of a gift exchange present that we gave away at Christmas along with some other things. The girl who got it knows it was from us and she is one of Justin's classmates. He is going to talk to her about it, but keep your fingers crossed that hers worked too! I still feel a little sick to my stomach and sooooo embarrassed. Justin calls it our " George Castanza gift". I could see him doing something like that, but believe me, if you ever received a gift card from us and it did not work let us know and you WILL get your ice cream! But let it be known, this is not an open invitation for me to take all of our blog readers out to ice cream (unless you play with my hair and give me a back rub)!

Sorry this post was REALLY long. So to sum up I hope I will get some great pics on the blog soon from my new camera.

Do any of you watch the bachelor like I finally do? And who was your favorite and who do you think he should pick? I am still trying to decide between the last 2.

And finally, cold stone, once I fell in love with your cake batter goodness, but now I am afraid you have put a damper on our relationship with this little mishap. I think I will be seeing more of my good friend Sebastian Joe and his famous Pavoratti ice cream.

2 Years

2009-02-17T14:15:00.005-06:00

2 Years ago today, I married by best friend and the love of my life for all time and eternity in the Logan, Utah Temple. A lot has happened since that day, but I am more in love with him than ever. We are off to go celebrate our special day!

Happy Anniversary Babe, 2 years!

Valentine's Day

2009-02-15T20:35:00.007-06:00

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day. Here in Minnesota, we Atkinson's had a very fun and romantic day!

The day started off with some long overdo sleeping in. It has been a LONG time since we were both able to just lay in bed in the morning! It was awesome. Justin left for a minute while I was getting ready. He arrived home with a lush vase of red roses, they are amazing and they smell sooooo good! Then we decided to exchange our little gifts for each other. I made him a card and wrapped up some of his favorite candy and a gift card to his favorite store (Banana Republic). He gave me some toblerones (my favorite) and a gorgeous white gold necklace! Justin does a great job picking me out jewelry, he really knows my taste.

(Me and my roses and my new necklace!)

We headed out and went to lunch at LeeAnn Chin, and then we did some shopping. We didn't actually buy anything, more just wandering around, but we still had a good time. Then we went to downtown Minneapolis to the Spaghetti Factory. The wait was an hour and a half so we put down our name and then wandered the city. It was fun but then I started whining because the shoes I was wearing were of the "great for looks not walking" variety. We got back to the Restaurant just in time and didn't have to wait at all. We had a great dinner. You can not go wrong in my book with spinach tortilini from the Spaghetti Factory.

(Justin in mid-chew and me. He just "loves" that I document everything!)

After dinner we went and saw, "He's just not that into you", which was pretty funny. I know that ours is the typical dinner and a movie Valentine's Day, but for poor college kids like ourselves, any excuse to eat out and see a show is fine by us! It was a great day and my baby sure spoiled me!

Thanks again hunny, I LOVE YOU!

Ending the night with a kiss!

Becoming Jane

2009-02-13T12:42:00.003-06:00

Today I am doing a movie review. I know that I usually do book reviews but I really wanted to talk about this movie. As the title states, this is a review of Becoming Jane. Have any of you seen this? I know there are people out there who don't like this movie. If you know much about the life of Jane Austen then the ending is no surprise, but if you do not know much about her, I am not one for spoilers.

For the record, I LOVE this movie. I think it is beautiful and heart wrenching and incredibly romantic. I think there are moments in this movie that are some of the most passionate and romantic scenes without being physical. This movie also caused me to develop an irreversible and deep "crush" on James McAvoy, (he is also great in Penelope, which is also an adorable and great movie). In this movie, unlike most out there, everyones lives don't end up perfectly, but the relationships and emotions are real and moving. I have seen this film a couple of times and I watched it again last night. Although I knew the movie, it sill made me fall in love, it broke my heart, and made me love Jane Austen even more.

There are characters in this movie that are very similar to those in Jane Austen's novels showing where a lot of her inspiration came from. And I know there are some who will say that this is not entirely a historical biography of Ms. Austen, and to them I say, " Who cares it is awesome and romantic and I love it, so leave me alone." If you have not seen this, you should check it out. You may not love it as I do, but it is a love story that I think will touch your heart.

Seeing these two together actually makes my heart flutter. Lame, I know.

Do any of you get in those "Time Period" phases? Two nights ago I watched Pride and Prejudice, and last night I watched Becoming Jane. I have just been in the mood for movies like that as of late. I also Just finished a book 3 days ago called Enthusiasm. It is about two friends and the one is obsessed with Pride and Prejudice. I wonder what sparked the phase this time? Maybe it is the upcoming Valentines Day and my Anniversary so I am feeling extra romantic. I tend to turn to things like this when I am feeling Romantic.

And since it is almost Valentines Day.......

Question: What are some of your favorite romantic movies?

Wednesday's Read

2009-02-11T18:40:00.004-06:00

The read for the day is, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I just finished this book a few days ago. I can't say that this is a happy book at all times, in fact the narrator is Death himself. So if this is not a warm and fuzzy read then why did I love it?

This book is set in Germany during the holocaust. It follows a girl named Liesel. She is the book theif, and Death has seen her a few times throughout her life and so he tells her story and the story of what is happening at the time. This book is unlike any book I have read before. The style of writing and the flow of the book was great. There was just something about this book that really hooked me. As with any great book it made me laugh, and it also made me cry (I actually cried kind of hard at one point). I also REALLY loved the characters in this book. I really felt like I cared about the characters by the end of this book. This book also made me think. When I am really interested in a book or when I really enjoy a book it stays with me for a couple days. I think about it when I am in bed or driving in the car. I have been thinking about this book and about the characters. I recommend this book because there was just something about it that I can't quite put my finger on yet. Although it was depressing at points, I really enjoyed this book.

Have any of you read this? I am interested in what you think about this book. What did you think of it?

I LOVE CVS!

2009-02-11T18:12:00.003-06:00

I'm in love with CVS. I had heard of their Extra Care Bucks program but never really thought that it would work out, and I figured it was going to be more hassle then the stuff was actually worth it, but boy was I wrong! I decided to give CVS a try this week and here is the result.

I got all of the merchandise below for less then 5 dollars

AND.... not only that but I have 5 "extra care bucks" to still spend in the store. So basically I made a few cents!

So I got

I jumbo bag cotton balls- 1.99

Nail polish remover- 1.99

Gillette fusion gamer razor- 11.99

(2) Heat pads 3 packs- 7.98

(8) Packages of cotton rounds- 7.92

That is 31.87 of merchandise for under 5 dollars out of pocket, and I still have 5 dollars in extra bucks so it was more then free.

I think I am officially addicted to CVS!

Have any of you ever done this? Are you ECB reward members?

A Package came in the mail.

2009-02-07T14:35:00.005-06:00

Yesterday a package came in the mail. I was very excited you see, because I LOVE getting packages and mail. When I opened the package this is what I saw

And here are the contents of my package.

It was perfect timing since this is what our candy dish looks like.

This package was from my mother. It was not the first of holiday packages stuffed with cheer though. For every holiday we get a package with treats, decorations, and all sorts of fun stuff. Our last one at christmas had lots of candy, a decoration, and a Christmas movie. Since the day I left for college I have been getting packages like this from my mom. She even used to put little treats in for my roommates. I seriously have the best mom who is always thinking of us and doing such awesome things for all of her kids.

The night that we got our Christmas package, my little sister's facebook status said " I'm putting up Christmas decorations that my mom sent me in the mail."

Mom, you are awesome. Thanks again we LOVE it.

p.s. I guarantee that candy wont make it to Valentines Day!

The Rasmussen Family

2009-02-04T16:01:00.013-06:00

I never got around to posting these pictures and I wanted to get them up here forever ago, but better late then never. A few days after Christmas my family went and got some pictures taken. It was really fun because A) We had baby Kaden there and we just gushed over him. B) My little brother Jake was the only one without a significant other so we gave him a hard time about it. C) My brother Jordan was posing like a pregnant lady, looking down upon and admiring his belly. I guess you had to be there, but it was a lot of fun, and here are some of the pictures.

Here is my family, I love them to pieces!-

First we have baby Kaden Jay Rasmussen. He is the youngest and cutest member of the Rasmussen family. He is the only grandchild and we love him to pieces. He is also the first boy with the last name Rasmussen and so he is the only great grandchild so far to carry on the Rasmussen name.

Next we have Jordan and Aubrey Rasmussen. Jordan is my older brother of about 19 months or so. He was one of my best friends in high school and I was pretty devastated when he left on his mission. He is the nice happy peace making child of our family. He is currently in the Psych program at the U of U. His wife Aubrey is one of the nicest and coolest people I have ever met! I am soooo glad my brother married such a great person who is so great to him. Oh and I forgot to mention, he is a DIE HARD Real Salt Lake fan. He has season tickets and a blog devoted to them called View From the North Goal. Check it out.

Next we have Justin and I. You already know us. And I hate this picture of myself but Justin looks great as always. I can always count on him to save pictures because he has the EXACT same face in every picture. It is actually pretty funny.

Next up is Caleb and soon to be Julie Banks. This is my little sister and her fiance. Julie is currently a freshman at BYU Prove (boo)! Julie is such a fun girl who is smart, energetic, talented and beautiful. She is barely five feet tall, but don't let the small exterior fool you, she is a firecracker! She plays the piano beautifully and is mostly self taught. She is gorgeous with amazing green eyes and the deepest auburn hair ever. She is my only sister, and we can drive each other crazy, but I love her to no end. Caleb is her fiance. He is a marine and is going to be stationed over seas for most of the year. When he returns they will be married on November 21st. YEAH! He is a really great, funny and sweet guy. They are lucky to have each other.

Next up is my baby brother Jake who towers over us all at just over 6 feet tall, remember my sister is barely 5 feet I am 5'2 and so is my mom. My dad is 5'8 and Jordan is a little shorter then that. Jake is an incredible person. He is a senior in high school. He is the gifted child. He has over a 4.0 GPA amazing test scores, and he tutors kids after school. Not only that he was the number one spot on the varsity tennis team and he played varsity golf as well. And not only that, he is soooo kind and soooo funny. He makes us laugh all the time. We love Jake so much.

And last but not least, My mom and Dad. My Dad is Jay. He is a Colonel in the U.S. Army. He has been a hard worker and has sacrificed so much for his family. People always think he is going to be some tough army guy (especially Justin before he met him), but my dad is the life of the party. He is so fun and crazy. He loves to play jokes and always has us laughing. He is a great person and a wonderful Father.

My Mom is Jane. She truly is one of my very best friends. When we talk on the phone it is usually for over 2 hours or until one of our phones die. We have sooo much in common. I am my mothers daughter and I love that I have turned into a mini her. She has the kindest heart and loves her kids with all her heart. She has always been there for us and no matter how old we all get, all of us kids still need our mom in our life.

Here is one of all of us. Notice how Jake has to kneel because he is so tall. And notice how him kneeling is the same height as my mom sitting on a stool.

The Siblings.

p.s. Did you notice how we are all J's? Jay, Jane, Jordan, Jessica, Julie, and Jacob. I am the only child that stayed true and Married a J. Thanks Justin for fitting in so well. But we love Aubrey, Caleb and Kaden too.

p.p.s. When Justin and I have kids should we name them all J's too to keep it going? We do have one name picked out that we like. Ji'Shaku. What do you think?

p.p.p.s Ji'Shaku is the name this crazy magnetic force game that my mom got us for Christmas. We thought it was so rad we would name a kid after it.

Thanks a lot Punxstutawney Phil!

2009-02-02T18:26:00.004-06:00

Happy Groundhog Day to all!

Last night Justin and I watched Groundhog Day which is such a great movie. I was hopeful that today, the beloved ritual would end in the result of Phil the groundhog not seeing his shadow, and this horrible winter would come to an end, but that is not how it all played out. Phil, you really disappointed me this year man! He saw his shadow. Winter will continue on for six more weeks. Now don't get me wrong, I am not deranged. I know that living in Minnesota the winter has no possibility of ending in just six weeks, but I was hoping for the earliest end to winter possible. Just so you all know and can all have pity on me, this has been one of the coldest Januarys in Minnesota history. In fact I think we were only a day or two short of the record. It is COLD here. Think warm thoughts for me.

Wednesday's Read

2009-01-28T13:52:00.002-06:00

Last night I went to my ward book club and had a great time. The book we read for January is this weeks Wednesday Read. The book is called The Beekeepers Apprentice, or Segregation of the Queen, by Laurie King. The title kind of threw me off but this is a great book. We have all heard of Sherlock Holmes and his mystery solving legends. Well what if Mr Holmes in the latter years of his career met a very young girl who had the potential to possibly be a greater detective then him? And what if she had no family so he trained her and tested her and in turn she brought out his youth and fun again? This book is about this unlikely duo who have some mysteries to solve, mysteries that I did not figure out until the villain was revealed. I really loved this book. When I heard we were reading it, I will admit that it did not sound that interesting to me, but I was wrong. I love the characters in this book and their relationship and I always love a good mystery!

Excuse Me...Waiter!

2009-01-26T17:50:00.001-06:00

So in my post about Chicago I mentioned that we had a little incident at TGI Fridays that I would post about later. Here is that post.

Have you ever met someone that just has a certain "thing" that always happens to them. You know, those people who just have bad luck when it comes to a certain area in their lives. Well I am one of those people, and my thing is food. I know it sounds weird but let me explain. I am that one person that when you go out to eat, my plate is going to be the one that goes back and believe me, I am not picky AT ALL. Here are some examples that I can remember (there have been so many :)

*I will try to save face for some companies here.

Ordered chicken fingers in bear lake, bit into chicken fingers and they were completely uncooked. I mean pink slimy and cold. Sent them back to cook a little longer. They came back and I cut into them, uncooked again. By the third time, still uncooked everyone else was done eating so I bagged it.

Justin for Valentines Day gave me some really nice chocolates from a great little Logan chocolate company. They were these huge delicious cherry cordials. I was down to my last one and as I was eating it, noticed a weird hard something in my mouth. I spit it out, rinsed it off and low and behold it was a piece of wood about the size of a dime.

We were out to eat at one of the nicest places in logan and I ordered my favorite chicken dish and it was completely uncooked. Whole entire cold pink chicken breast. Worst part, I took a big bite and swallowed before realizing.

One time we were driving to the airport and we stopped to fill up on gas. I love doughnuts and so I went in the gas station to get me a maple bar. As I was eating it my senses picked up on yet another weird object. I reached to my lips and pulled out a long piece of wire that had been baked into my delicious morning treat.

And now on to Fridays. On our recent trip to Chicago we decided to get some dinner at TGI Fridays. We had a gift card from Christmas (thanks mom) so we were going to go all out. The appetizers were all half off with the purchase of an entree so we got an appetizer and then our entrees. I ordered this amazing gourmet chicken mac and cheese. It was delish, but when I was about half way done I noticed something blue in my food. I examined it closer and it was a sticker with some expiration date info. I was not going to say anything, I mean it's not like it was going to cause me bodily harm but our waiter saw it and told me not to take another bite of my food. The manager came over and I told him it was totally fine but he said nonsense. I was pretty full at that time so they gave me my meal for free plus a free desert and a card for a free appetizer on our next visit. So we got an appetizer, two meals and desert for like 13 bucks and it only took half our gift card.

And when we were at the nice restaurant in logan they also brought me out a new meal and gave it to me for free and desert too.

We have decided that it really pays to have your food messed up. They really treat you well when something like that happens.

Ice cream weather

2009-01-23T21:27:00.002-06:00

So tonight my dear hubby and I went on a little date night. We went out for some italian and after dinner we decided we needed to get something sweet to take home while we watched a movie. We went to my favorite ice cream shop, Sebastian Joe's and on the way we talked about how crazy it is that we were going out for ice cream on such a dang cold night. As we were ordering we noticed a sign that said something like, "Sine it's so cold out and you are still buying our ice cream, you get a discount based on the weather. The colder it is, the bigger the discount."

And there was a chart below that went as follows.

20-10 degrees- 5% off

10-0 degrees- 10% off

o to -10 degrees- 15% off

-10 to -20 degrees- 20% off

-20 to -30 degrees- 25% off

And guess how much our ice cream was discounted? 25%! Thats right, it was -21 degrees tonight and we went out for ice cream. We may be crazy, but I just finished my Pavorati ice cream and it was totally worth it!

Wednesday's Read

2009-01-21T23:19:00.004-06:00

Thats right, after a small hiatus Wednesday's read is back in action! Todays read is a little different then reads of the past, in that it is not a book. One of my online pastimes is obviously blogging and reading blogs. I know that we all read the blogs of friends and relatives but there are blogs that I love reading that are are not people that I know. I want to share with you some of my favorite blogs that I read that you may or may not have heard about

Click on any of the links to go to the blog.

Cakewrecks- "When professional cakes go horribly and hilariously wrong" is the slogan. This blog is devoted to really bad cakes. I found myself laughing out loud on so many of the cakes. The blog is ran by a gal named Jen, and I love reading her witty commentary. To get to some of the really bad/great ones you have to go back in the archives but it is worth it. I have read this entire blog all the way through.

Fail Blog -A blog devoted to pictures and video clips that have failed horribly. See examples below. Also check out the English Fail Blog, it is devoted to misspelled and bad english.

"Sneaky Restaurant Fail"

"Sticker Placement Fail"

Making Memories Blog- This blog is always full of cute scrap-booking and craft ideas

Becky Higgins and Lisa Bearnson's Blogs- Both of these ladies have great ideas, sometimes giveaways and Becky has great recipes on her blog. Lisa is the founder of Creating Keepsakes magazine.

The Movie Blog- I have found this site to give really good movie reviews that are very in depth but with hardly any spoilers. They also have great best, worst, etc... lists.

NieNieDialogues- A blog about an LDS mother of 4 named Stephanie Nielson. I had just started reading her blog last summer and thought she was just such a fun, beautiful mom who is mad in love with her Husband and then in August she was in a plane crash with her husband who is a pilot. She was very critically injured and her sister took in her kids and continued to blog about the kids and about Stephanie's progress. on the 16th of this month, Stephanie started blogging again. She and her sister Cjane both have great blogs.

And here are a few other pretty funny blogs if you need a little laugh:

Quotation Marks- The blog of unnecessary quotation marks.

Crummy Church Signs- Critical analysis of critically bad church signs

Cute Overload- Some are cute, some are kinda creepy, and please stop dressing up animals!

Kitten Wars- Some of the hardest decisions of my life have been made here. Choose wisely.

Lovely Listings- Pictures from Real estate ad's that do more harm then good for the seller.

Go Fug Yourself- Really funny commentary on really fugly celebrity attire.

So those are some of the blogs that I browse when I am putting off more important things. Let me know of any great blogs that you guys love to follow.

Chicago!

2009-01-18T20:08:00.007-06:00

On January 12th Justin and I left for Chicago. When we were looking for places to stay in the city, we decided we wanted to stay at the Wyndham but while doing our research we found that hotels in Chicago do not provide free parking, and the charges are outrageous! It was going to be 49 dollars a night to park at the Wyndham. While looking we found there was a best western downtown that had free parking but it was the only hotel in the city that offered it. We decided to stay there one night, and then the Wyndham the other night. When we got to our hotel the first night they randomly upgraded us to a suite. It was Sweet! (pun intended) Then we decided to go out and get some dinner and walk around. It was snowing like crazy, but it made the city look beautiful. We walked along the "Magnificent Mile" which is a mile of high end shopping and we stopped for some dinner at TGI Fridays. We had a little incident there, but I will post about that a little later. Then we walked around some more, got some goodies at a little market and went back to our hotel.

(not a great pic, but one of the only ones of the city I have. It was too cold and snowy!)

Then next morning we headed out to go see the home of Frank Lloyd Wright. He is a famous architect and his homes are incredible. I became a fan of his when I took some interior design classes at USU and have been lucky enough to see some of his homes. I was so excited to actually see his own home that he built. Justin and I both had a great time on our tour. I guess I am kinda nerdy because that was one of my favorite parts of Chicago!

Then we did a little more shopping, and then we went out to get some real deep dish Chicago pizza. When we sat down our waitress said that it takes about 45 mins to cook. We were a little hesitant but decided to wait. There was a big sign that read "Worth the Wait" and let me tell you, it was! It was some of the best pizza I have ever had. The slices were huge and cheesy and delicious.

After dinner we got all dolled up and went to go see Wicked. I had been wanting to see it for so long and I actually had butterflies in my stomach when it started because I was soooo excited. The show was amazing! I loved it! The music is fabulous and the costumes and scenery and special effects were awesome. We both had such a great time. The only downside was parking again. It was going to be 30 dollars but our validated price was only 19.....only. When we got back to our hotel we decided we had the munchies so we went out into the freezing cold to find something still open. We ended up with Slurpees and Cheetos and took our feast back to our room and ate it all in our big fluffy hotel bed. It was such a great night!

We were sad to leave and get back to real life the next morning, especially since it was a blizzard! I fell asleep but Justin counted about 32 cars off the road as we were trying to get out of the city. It was a mess but we made it home in one piece. It was a great little getaway. Chicago is such a cool city and we can't wait to go back when it is warmer and see more of the sights.

This is the view from our room at the Wyndham. Much more impressive in person!

Christmas 2008

2009-01-12T02:14:00.011-06:00

First and foremost let me apologize for being the biggest blog slacker ever! We just kept too busy and we were having too much fun with all of the fam, but that is not a very good excuse to abandon my dear blog. I am going to attempt to condense 3 weeks of holiday bliss into one post.

Here goes.....

Dec 18th flew into Utah and met up with Justin's Mom and Dad, brother and sister in law and niece and headed up to logan. Played lots of games, watched movies, dined at our much missed costa vida, I got my hair cut, Justin went skiing, played with 3 puppies and one normal sized dog in the snow, went to family parties, played with niece and laughed a lot!

On Dec 22nd we drove to Saratoga Springs where my brother and his wife have a house and met up with all of my family. We were together for the first time in 2 years and it was a blast. Watched lots of movies, ate good food, met sisters fiance, more family parties, played games, went shopping, watched christmas vacation in our new christmas jammies, had an amazing christmas day, went to some movies, went to Body World with some friends, got professional pics taken of the family, held nephew a LOT, fed nephew, rocked nephew, watched Nephew get blessed on the 27th of December, and said goodbye to family that night and drove back up to logan.

From the 27th to the 6th of January we played lots of poker, went out to dinner a few times, slept in, played with dogs, played with niece, got my hair colored, Justin skied some more, opened presents, watched Utah win the Sugar Bowl, went to movies Boys went bunny hunting and girls watched chick flicks, and had a great time hanging out with family.

Then on the 6th of January we flew to Las Vegas for a little get away before returning home to Minnesota. We stayed at Treasure Island which was way nice and had a great time going to dinner and playing the nickel slots. We are still not quite sure if going to 60 degree weather and then back to 1 degree weather was a good idea or not.

Then on the 8th we flew back into Minnesota and came home to a cozy, quiet little apartment that was warm and in perfect shape and a car that was not stolen, that ran great after not running in below zero temps for 3 weeks. We miss our families already but it is nice to be back to our life and our routines and our frigid Minnesota winter. Christmas was amazing and we were spoiled!

Here are a few more details...

Movies we saw in the theater: 7 Pounds, Marley and Me, Yes Man, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Here are some things we got:

Her- LOTS of clothes, a North Face puffy coat, about 70 bucks in gift cards to bookstores(yeah!). And lots of other misc GC's to eat out, for clothes, pics etc..., A scrapbook kit, Photoshop Elements, a new font for my die cut machine, a scentsy warmer, shoes, a robe, money, some movies and my husband got me tickets to see Wicked in Chicago! And lots and lots of things like jewelry, makeup and fun little things that I love getting!

Him- a nice GPS, a blackberry, LOTs of clothes, some books, Gift cards for some Twins tickets, lots of other gift-cards for boy stuff, food, itunes etc.., cologne, a nice jacket, and lots of ski passes(yeah for him). And he got lots of other little things as well that are a lot of fun!

We really got some great stuff this year, but better then that(well almost...) was getting to meet our niece and nephew and have 3 weeks to be with our families. I can't think of the last time we saw every member of our families during one visit. It really was a great Christmas and we are so grateful for all the nice gifts and the hospitality while we were in Utah. We love you all sooo much!

And now off to Chicago! We are seeing Wicked on the 13th and staying in Chicago for 2 nights! I could not be more excited!!!!

P.S I know the pics are weak. I am working on getting a few collages put together when we get back in a couple days! Stay tuned.....

Back in MN

2009-01-08T23:05:00.003-06:00

We got back from Utah tonight and I know that I have not blogged since we left (sorry) but be prepared for a couple big updates about all that we have been up to.

Hope you all had a fabulous Christmas, and stay tuned!

Christmas! (numero uno)

2008-12-16T23:41:00.010-06:00

Since Justin and I will be flying to Utah to spend the holidays with family, we decided to open the majority of our presents from each other last night since we are going to be pretty busy until we leave, and since we wanted to pack a lot of what we were getting. We found some sweet deals on black friday so we both got clothes, clothes, and more nice warm clothes for Christmas. After we shopped we handed each other our loot and wrapped the other persons gifts. No surprise there, but we got some great stuff and at least we know we will like it! It was still really fun opening and finally getting the clothes we bought a couple weeks ago, and I also got to open one that was a surprise. Justin got me THE most amazing luxurious and softest robes on the planet. I have never had a robe and I have really been wanting a really nice one and mine is amazing. I was super excited.

We had a little too much fun taking some pictures of our first Christmas celebration, enjoy!

Me showing the tree some love

That is one very excited/sexy Justin!

Merry (early) Christmas!

We took a little break to watch our beloved "Headlines". Merry Christmas Mr. Leno!

VERY excited for my first present!!!

Poor Justin, he didn't get what he asked Santa for.

I totally look like a vampire here, and I am not talking about my abnormally good looks. I am talking about my pale, glow in the dark skin and flaming red eyes. My skin is seriously as white as the wall. I like to call it porcelain, it makes me sound fancy.

Ahhhh new robe. Ahhhh Christmas wrapping paper!

Justin and his goods

Me and Mine!

As a child we always had to pose with all of our presents and Justin did too, so naturally it has carried on. We do it with our Birthday presents too. I don't think I could actually open presents and then not compile them and pose with them. It would seem so wrong!