Wednesday's Read

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?

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!)

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.

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

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.

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

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!