Toe Socks!

Nate got me some toe socks for Christmas! It's been years and years since I've had a pair of these and now I have 3 pairs! Yeah, they feel a bit awkward when you first put them on but you get used to them. Nate doesn't like to even look at them on because it freaks him out. I love socks that aren't just regular plain white ones. I used to only own one or two pairs of white socks in my pre-marriage days. I was all about the striped, plaid, silly socks and was reminded of them when I was going through some old pictures a couple weeks ago, so I decided to ask Nate for some non-boring socks. I didn't expect him to actually get me any since his reply was "but I like that you wear regular white socks now." He just doesn't get my love of the unusual sock. I also bought myself some non-white socks for Christmas, so now I have several new pairs of non-white socks. Yay!

Halfway there...

Nate received some really good news in the mail yesterday. He passed the Regulation section of the CPA exam! Woohoo! 2 sections down (REG & BEC), 2 more to go until he will be a Certified Public Accountant. He was surprised that he actually passed Regulation since he didn't feel like he did that well. It was great news- not only because now he's halfway to getting his CPA designation but also because we don't have to pay for him to retake the section.

A Long Overdue Family Picture

It's just too bad it wasn't planned ahead so that Nate would have worn something a little nicer. Oh well. Beggars can't be choosers.

The Chicago Caper

Last weekend I hosted a murder mystery party. I have done many in the past, but this was the first one I'd done since my single days. I wasn't sure if Nate would enjoy it, since he'd never done one, but I didn't give him a choice in the matter. Lucky for me, he did enjoy it and now I know that my murder mystery party days are not over.

Finding 3 other couples to participate ended up being more of a challenge than I expected. We thought we were all set, but one of the couples had to back out kind-of last minute and gratefully, our neighbor Sherrie's sister, Rose, and her boyfriend were more than willing to step in . It ended up being a very fun group.

Setting up for the party was quite the task. We had gotten our carpets cleaned the week before, so we took advantage of that to move our furniture into different locations for the party. We moved furniture into our living room (which previously only had the two bookcases) and set up our dining room table in the family room so that we had more room around the table.

We did The Chicago Caper which is set in a 1928 speakeasy. For decorations I put up some brown paper on the wall in an attempt to resemble holes in plaster and I picked up some liquor boxes from the liquor store to stack around the room. I also covered the windows with brown paper and a dropcloth.

I set up our living room as a lounge and used the pillows from our bed to add to the look on the couch and then hung the drapes from our bedroom to separate the living room from "da back room".

I had fun setting up the table and experimenting with different ways to fold the napkins. I settled on "The Rose" since it also worked great as a holder for the placecards.

Since we were in a speakeasy, it only made sense to have a bar. My dad kindly agreed to play the bartender and I researched the popular cocktails from the 20's and used my Mocktails recipe book to find some non-alcoholic versions.

With only a few minor glitches at the beginning, everything went as planned and it turned out to be a very fun and enjoyable evening. I look forward to the next one!

The Gents

(Greg, Nate, Rich, James)

The Ladies

(Rose, Sherrie, Me, Mary)

Are You a US Citizen?

Okay, I'm sure the test isn't this simple, but how would you do if it was?

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

Our 7th Anniversary

Nate and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary on Saturday. Now that my parents live close we were able to go away for the weekend. I've been itching to go to the theatre more and so Nate suggested that we go down to Cedar City to the Shakespearean Festival, so that's what we did. I purchased tickets for the two plays that were playing in the evenings that weekend- The Tempest and The Mousetrap (not Shakespeare, the festival does about half Shakespeare) and made hotel reservations.
Of course, travel plans never go as smoothly when I'm involved. I love to travel but it always seems like there's some mishap when I'm involved (like flight delays/cancelled flights, lost luggage, mechanical errors, etc). This time it was two things. Nate left work early on Friday so that we could get down to Cedar City in time to check into the hotel and change before the evening's performance of The Tempest.
Since we would be out of town and the kids would be at my parent's house, I figured it would be a good time to have our carpets cleaned (at least the downstairs). I scheduled the carpet cleaners for 2pm, figuring that that would give me enough time to show them the problems spots and get them started before it was time to go. Well, they were running late- really late. Initially they told me they would be about 20 minutes late. No sweat. Plenty of time to still get out on time. When they were 1 hour late and I still hadn't heard from them again, I called them and found out they were still 20 minutes away (which turned into 30 minutes). It was already time for us to leave. I couldn't believe that Nate beat the carpet cleaners to our house. I called my dad to come over so that we could leave the second the cleaners showed up (since I didn't want the cleaners to hang out at our house alone). My dad showed up right before the cleaners did and I ended up spending about 15 minutes talking to the carpet cleaner before we finally made it out the door. So it was 4pm by the time we ended up on our way- after a stop at McDonald's for some food and Costco for gas. Okay, still enough time to get to the play just on time.
Then Nate got a call from work. He accidentally forgot to sign some file back in and needed to do that so that the final work could be done. So now he had to take care of that. We were still able to continue our drive down to Cedar City, but now he would have to sign the file back in once we got there- luckily he had brought his laptop with him and the hotel we were staying at had free WiFi. It's sounds like a simple enough process, but it's time-consuming. We got to Cedar City just before 7pm and while I checked in he got his laptop out and ready. We got to our room, only to find it looking a bit in use (the bed was unmade) and so I went back to the front desk to get another room. Nate ended up just going to the lobby so that he could transfer the file while I straightened the room out. We were upgraded to a suite (in the loosest definition of the word- it was just a slightly bigger room) and I got changed for the play. It was 7:20PM and the play was starting at 7:30. I went to check on Nate in the lobby, only to find him about halfway through the transfer. Argh! It took another 15 minutes to complete and another 5 to confirm with the office and shut down the computer. We ended up being 15 minutes late to the play. And since I had never seen The Tempest before, or even read it, I was a bit lost. Plus, I had a headache from the ordeal of getting there and Nate was tired from going into work early so he could leave early and kept nodding off (plus it was quite warm where we were sitting) and one of the main actors didn't articulate. So we didn't end up enjoying the play as much as we should have. Oh well.
Saturday was much better. We slept in as late as we could without missing the hotel's free continental breakfast and just relaxed the rest of the morning. Then we decided to take a walk around downtown Cedar City (the whole 2 blocks of it). We went in a bunch of stores, ate lunch at a diner, got ice cream at the soda fountain, and walked back to the hotel. We caught up on some of the TV shows we had downloaded and then went to dinner. We made it to the play that night with plenty of time to spare- we even walked to the theatre. We saw The Mousetrap which we were both able to enjoy much more. We weren't tired and I didn't have a headache. It wasn't as hot in the section we were in and the actors were much easier to understand. I didn't think I had read this play before, but about halfway through I realized I had because I knew who the murderer was. This play still wasn't Nate's favorite, but at least he didn't hate it like he did Spamalot.

Sunday morning we also took advantage of the fact that we wouldn't be woken up by the kids and slept in. We made it to breakfast in time and then packed our stuff back into the car and headed home. All in all it was a good trip and nice to get away. And yet, I was still happy to get home and pick up the kids and return to our normal everyday life.

The Twilight Obsession

Two weeks ago I bought the first book in the Twilight series at Costco that I had heard a little bit about on the news or something. All I really knew about the series was that it was written by a BYU grad, it was a vampire story, and the vampires had morals. Being the vampire lover that I am, I had to give it a read. I started the first book, Twilight, after church two Sundays ago and was so taken by the story that I had it finished by Tuesday morning (all 500 pages). And since the book had the first chapter of the second book in it as a teaser, I was desperate to get the second book. I held off on buying the second book, New Moon, until that Thursday (and went ahead and bought the third book while I was at it) and had it completed by Friday night (another 550 pages or so) and immediately started in on the third book, Eclipse. I was finished with the third book (about 650 pages) the following Sunday after I had started the first book.
Yep, I read all three books in almost exactly one week. I had a hard time keeping myself away from them. I didn't completely shun my duties. I still took care of my kids and cooked (although house cleaning did suffer), but I longed for the times I could read- like naptime and when Nate got home from work and once the kids were in bed. I stayed up late reading almost every night. I dreamt about Twilight. I was obsessed. And now I have to wait a whole year for the next book! In that way I am glad that I did not stumble across the series when only the first book was out. The torture of waiting would have just been horrible at times.
So if you like vampire stories I suggest you give this one a try.

POTGSL & TLAPD

On International Talk Like A Pirate Day I went to see a screening of Pirates of the Great Salt Lake. The screenplay was actually written by two guys who grew up in the same ward as I did and I had been waiting awhile for a chance to see the movie. They encouraged people to dress up like a pirate for the occasion and I was happy to oblige. But since I didn't really think about dressing up until the day of the screening, I had to scrounge around my house for my costume. I think I did a really good job. Here I am:

I was disappointed to arrive and find that so few other people decided to also dress up. They movie was very enjoyable and I hope they get a distribution deal soon.

SPAMALOT!!

Spamalot came to Salt Lake City and Nate was very excited to see it. Although we knew exactly when it was, we waited for whatever reason and didn't get our tickets until about 2 weeks before the show. Our seats were the absolute last seats available in our sections. Seriously- last row of the balcony, last two seats on the far right. Visability was mostly a problem for me due to tall guys sitting in the couple rows in front of me, but our neighbor realized that since we were the back row we could get away with sitting on our seats folding up and that was much better. I really enjoyed the show and was reminded once again why I love theatre so much, whereas Nate ended up absolutely hating it. Here's what he has to say about the experience: "At first it was mildly uninteresting and then it degenerated into completely intolerable." He really thought that a Monty Python musical would be different, but it was not the case. They just made fun of the typical musical by singing about typical musicals in the same style. So much for my hopes that he would change his mind about musicals and take me to see more. I guess I'll just have to find someone else to go with me next year when Wicked comes to Salt Lake. We are going to Cedar City for our anniversary to see The Tempest and The Mousetrap, so hopefully he'll enjoy those and take me to see more plays (of the non-musical variety).

The Summer Party

The company Nate works for decided to do things a little different for the Summer Party this year from years past. In the past the Summer Party consisted of spending the day in Park City doing whatever you wanted and getting $50 for it and then meeting up at The Grubb Steak for dinner (paid for by the company). They decided too many people weren't really spending the day in Park City and were just taking advantage of the day "off" so this year the party was much more structured and everyone had to show their face at various points throughout the day, which made it known to the partners who was actually participating. If you didn't spend the day in Park City doing the specified activities, the employee was required to actually go to the office and work like it was just another normal work day, or take vacation.

The Summer Party was planned so that all the activities would take place during the normal work hours (8am-5pm). To start the day everyone was to meet at the condominium (co-owned by one of the partners) at 8am. Once there, we had a choice of walking, running, or biking a mapped out course that would take approximately 45 minutes to complete. After completing your chosen course a light breakfast would be served at the condo. At 10:30am there were two more options to choose from for the next activity: Golfing or Park City Mountain Resort. If you chose golfing then you had to be experienced to play 18 holes, otherwise you would participate in a group gold lesson. The Park City Mountain Resort group would receive an unlimited all-day pass to ride the rides and enjoy the other activities that the Resort offered. At 3:30pm everyone was to meet back at the condo for a partially catered dinner.

When we first received the flyer detailing this year's Summer Party, we were a little disappointed. We were looking forward to a day at the outlets and I especially was looking forward to the creme brulee at the restaurant that we had gone to in the past, but after this year's new-fangled Summer Party was over, we were happy for the change. Here's how the party went:

We left our house for Park City around 6:30am so that we would arrive at the condo on time. Traffic was great and it was looking like we would actually arrive on the early side, until...Whoa! There was an accident on the 80 that entirely shut down our side of the freeway. Shortly after we got to the stopped traffic, an ambulance, firetruck, and several police cars drove by us down the shoulder. We were parked for about 15 minutes while enough of the accident was cleared so that traffic could merge into the left lane to get around the accident. A second accident happened right in front of us which made it a little more difficult for the emergency vehicles to get around to the main accident which involved 2 trucks. It took us about another 10 minutes once traffic started inching forward to see what happened. The Semi-truck was completely smashed-up in the front and even the windshield was cracked- he rear-ended a dump truck. Not something you see everyday.

We got to the condo about 25 minutes late, although due to the accident, we were actually among the first to arrive. We ended up being pretty close to the accident so it didn't take us the hour it took some people to get past the crash. We started in quickly on the walk and considered taking a shortcut to finish up on time but Nate was afraid that one of the Partner's wives would be sitting at the last turn just to make sure people were doing the whole course (he really wouldn't put it past his boss to do something like that). Of course, we found out no one was watching us as we came around the last bend and walked the final stretch back to the condo. When we got back, the condo was packed full of the employees and their guests. And all the food was gone. Yep, all the people that were stuck in the accident longer than us decided to skip the walk (run, bike) and just dive into breakfast. Luckily, someone took pity on the dozen or so people that actually participated in the first activity and ran to the store to get some more juice and some donuts.

The next activity that we chose was going to Park City Mountain Resort. I had never been there before and Nate had only been there once about 15 or so years ago. I had looked at their website the night before but wasn't sure how fun the rides would be. Especially the slides- Nate had told me horror stories of people going to fast and going up over the edge and gashing their arms or legs open. So I go on the Alpine Slide just a bit on the nervous side not sure if it's something that I'm going to get hurt on since I do tend to be on the accident-prone side. But it turned out fine and I was actually disappointed in myself for being too conservative with my speed. Yeah, umm, horror stories. No, just one story really. Nate's story of his experience when he was going to fast and cut open his arm and now has a scar. I'm not even sure how he managed to even do that. Here are some pictures of the Alpine Slide (click on them to see a larger image):

We ended up going on the slides 2 more times- racing each other down (technically against the rules, but...). Nate beat me due to a technicality the first time- I had to stop because the person in front of me was going way slow, although I would have clearly won if it wasn't for that. I had no problem beating him the second time.

We really enjoyed the Alpine Coaster. We didn't expect it to be that exciting when we first saw it, but once on, we realized it was a much better ride than it appeared at first sight. We went on the coaster 3 times, one of which we rode together and went really fast. Here are some pics:


Another favorite ride was the ZipRider. I hadn't been on a zipline in at least 15 years, but it was every bit as fun as I remembered and more because it was a much longer zipline. Here are some pictures from the top and of people going over us on our way up the coaster:

The other things we enjoyed were the trampoline (only I did that one) and the rock climbing wall. Nate got all the way to the top on the 2 highest skill levels and I made it about three-quarters of the way up on one of the lowest skill levels. If I hadn't done the trampoline first (which really wears out the arms) and hadn't taken a wrong step to get me kind-of stuck, I probably would have made it all the way up, but my fingers just weren't having it and gave it. Here's some more pics:



After our time at Park City Mountain Resort, we headed back to the condo for dinner. There we enjoyed some good food and non-work related conversation (and some work related conversation that lead to a guy quitting the following week). All in all it was a fun day and we hope the Summer party is done the same way next year.

It's the dreaded 3-0

I. am. 30. Yep, it's true. I never thought I would have such a hard time turning 30, but it sort-of sucks - especially since Nate was out of town for my birthday (for the second year in a row), due to work training. Luckily, I have two wonderful neighbors (Samantha and Sherrie) who took me out for dessert so I felt a little more special (and my parents also took me to IHOP for breakfast). Here's me on my birthday:


As my sister put it, I'm now 29 from now on (or for as long as I can get away with it!).

And here I thought I could avoid being tagged...

Well, I've been tagged by my old roommate Angela, so here are my answers for the questions I was given....

Jobs I've had:

1. Babysitting
2. Temp jobs (data entry, stuffing envelopes, receptionist, etc)
3. Cinnabon (mmm, never got sick of eating them)
4. Sears (I started first in the electrical dept and then moved to the paint department)
5. Haunted Forest (didn’t pay that well but was lots of fun)
6. Halloween EFX (Halloween costume store- I worked there 2 Halloween seasons)
7. UVSC Ragan Theatre (doing tech theatre stuff)
8. Samples at Costco (I forget the name of the company I actually worked for- I only did it for about 2 months)
9. Hair Diamonds (owned by one of the Halloween EFX owners, so they pleaded for me to come work there- it closed when I quit)
10. Far West Bank (accounting dept.)
11. Assistant Manager at a Senior Mobile Home Park

Getaways - I'd like to do:

1. Alaskan Cruise
2. Hawaii
3. Europe
4. Brazil (to see where Nate served his mission)
5. See all 50 states (I’m up to 33, kind-of, 30 solid)

Movies I put on repeat:

1. Empire Records
2. Some Kind of Wonderful (it’s been awhile)
3. Dirty Dancing (well, I used to)
4. Girls Just Want To Have Fun
5. Nightmare Before Christmas

Guilty pleasures:

1. reading
2. sugary foods
3. watching television (I watch waaaayyyy to many shows and we just got Dish a little over a month ago after not having any TV for over a year and a half)
4. looking at houses and house plans online (you know, to plan for our dream home…)

Places I've lived:

1. Herndon/Oak Hill, VA (18 yrs plus a couple Summers)
2. Rexburg, ID (4 semesters, 3 apartments)
3. Provo, UT (5 1/2 years total, 8 moves)
4. Orem, UT (almost 1 year)
5. Ventura, CA (about 2 years, 2 moves)
6. Lehi, UT (going on 2 years)

Places I've been on holidays (vacations):

1. Texas (Dallas, Houston, McAllen)
2. Albuquerque, New Mexico
3. Wildwood, New Jersey
4. North Carolina (Outer Banks, Greenville)
5. Wheeling, West Virginia
6. New York City, New York
7. LDS Church sites across the country
8. Disneyland
9. Las Vegas, NV
10. South Carolina
11. California (all over)
12. Washington (Seattle, Port Townsend)
13. Bahamas
14. Louisiana (Monroe, New Orleans)
15. Victoria, BC (Canada)
16. And many more…

Favorite foods:

1. Steak
2. Costco Pizza
3. Oriental Chicken Salad
4. Homemade Mac & Cheese

Favorite Desserts:

1. Fudge
2. Brownies
3. Lemon desserts

First kiss location:

• Outside the Washington, D.C. Temple Visitor’s Center. It was Christmas-time and the singing group I was in was performing that night at the Visitor’s Center. My high school boyfriend (although not quite yet) came to watch but I didn’t end up singing because I had a sore throat. We ended up just hanging out the whole time and when we went outside he asked if he could kiss me.
• My first kiss with Nate happened at his apartment right after we finished watching a movie. It was on May 8th and we were engaged less than 2 months later.

Okay, now to tag some people...

I tag Sherrie, Shayla, and Sally (If she evens reads my blog). I'd tag more but I don't really know anybody else that has a blog and hasn't been tagged recently.

This blog is for the non-children related events

Okay, I don't know how often this blog will be updated since so much of our lives are centered around the kids, but we'll see. I hope to find some stories to tell that are more about me and Nate. Hopefully I'll add a real entry soon!