Long Overdue Update, Volume 2

Hair School!  I started hair school last November and I am loving it!  I found the best school and I can't wait to be certified and to start working!

Christmastime this year brought a giant Christmas tree, footie pajamas, and a fun dinner experiment.  It was a great holiday.  It was our first Christmas away from our families, but that didn't stop us from the regular festivities.

We opened our stockings first thing in the morning.  Craig woke me up at about 8:00 and I think he had already been up for about two hours because he was so excited.

Craig's mom made this awesome quilt out of his old t-shirts.  Now our two twin beds in the guest bedroom are sporting his and hers t-shirt quilts.  Thanks everyone for all of the awesome Christmas presents including an amazing grill from Craig's parents that now gets used at least weekly.

We decided to go all out for dinner and attempted a crown rack of lamb a la Alton Brown.  It turned out great and was a lot of fun to make, but I soon learned that I don't love the taste of lamb by itself.   But it sure looked pretty!

For New Years we partied it up with our pal Bill Cosby at the local Indian casino.  Live music, all-you-can-eat buffet, and free caricatures.  It was a great time.

HOBBES!  Meet the newest member of our family.  We love our new little guy and he keeps a entertained constantly.

This is a typical sleeping position.  He follows us around the house and loves to have his belly rubbed.  I think he may be more puppy than kitten.

For Valentine's day we made heart shaped pizzas that were delicious!  Though unfortunately they turned out to be the down fall of our oven.  Turns out that 500 degrees for over an hour can sometimes melt the temperature gauge in an old oven. 

Who doesn't love a good fort?  I think any movie is better when you watch it under a tent made of blankets.

Superbowl!  We had a blast with some pals watching the big game and eating some yummy grub.

Thanks for your delicious nachos, Liz!

Next we are looking forward to an awesome trip coming up in May.  We're going with my parents on a cruise to the Mediterranean!!!  How awesome is that?  More to come later . . .

Long Overdue Update

The coolest thing that happened since we last posted?  We bought our first house!  Woohoo!  Home ownership is awesome and we love our new place.

We weren't quick enough to take a picture with our For Sale sign before it was taken down, so this is one on a house down the street.  It worked out better that way since our sign wasn't as "fabulous" as this one.

This note was the moment I learned that we closed on our house.  What a relief since we had to be out of our apartment that night!

Thanksgiving brought our first house guests and our first time hosting a major holiday.  My parents and my sister and her family made it through a nasty snow storm to spend the holiday with us.  Here we're spending some crafty time glass etching our names on various casserole dishes (thanks LO Relief Society).

The day after Thanksgiving we stumbled on something called a Flash Kitchen.  In the middle of a major shopping center, Whole Foods had set up outdoor kitchen stations and were giving free cooking demonstrations on ways to use Thanksgiving leftovers.  Because of the nasty weather outside, there weren't many people in the audience and we got plenty of opportunities to help and plenty of samples.  It was awesome.

Happiest Place on Earth

Three days of jam-packed fun at Disneyland and California Adventure makes for one great weekend!

We got there right when the park opened on Friday and went straight to Splash Mountain.  Incredibly, there was no one in line (I've waited a good 2 hours for this ride in the past) so we stayed on for two rides in a row.  And somehow, every time we went on Splash Mountain or the Bear Mountain River Run, Craig got soaked and I was pretty much completely dry. 

It was the first weekend for the Halloween setup of the park which brought more crowds than we expected and changed up some of the rides a bit, but it was fun seeing everything in the Halloween theme.

Although I absolutely love thrill rides, my wonderful husband does not share the same sentiment.  This picture pretty much says it all.

Our handiwork from the animation class

I have always always wanted to go to the Blue Bayou (the restaurant inside Pirates of the Caribbean) and I finally got to go!  We went as part of our belated anniversary celebration and it was super fun and absolutely delicious!

It was an amazing trip and we loved every minute of it.  But man did it wear us out!

Summer Recap

There's something about blog posting that makes me a little intimidated. I consistently put off posting new entries knowing that it will take so much time and creativity to create posts that measure up to all of the amazing blogs created by my friends that I love to read. So being the lazy blogger that I am, here are all of the backup photos from a great summer that I have put off posting for so long. It may not be creative, but at least it's up.
Since each of my four siblings and their families live in a different state, it can sometimes take some effort to get everyone together. This year our reunion was at my brother's house in New Mexico. We had a blast hiking through the cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde, floating the San Juan River, and having crazy water balloon fights.

Rudger was a little pooped after the hike (as were we all).

My gorgeous dirt tan

Hiking the red rocks in St. George on our way back to Utah.

Our redneck moment

Half of the latest edition to our family. My brother and his wife recently had twins who were each over 9 pounds! They were beautiful babies and we are so excited for my brother and his wife.

Some other things we've been up to this summer are: We went to the Portland Zoo . . .

We tried some new recipes . . .

I went to my awesome cousin's wedding in Utah . . .

An awesome visit to Enchanted Forest was a great Disneyland appetizer . . .

And I finally got around to finishing my t-shirt quilt that I started before we moved to Oregon. It was a lot of work and I had no idea what I was doing, but I am so happy with how it turned out.

I used thick batting and super soft/fuzzy backing so this is now the heaviest and largest blanket we own. It's huge!

It was a great summer and we're looking forward to all of the changes that fall is going to bring . . .