When it rains it pours... or floods

It has been good to have Miss home on Sundays. No more piano for a few weeks at least. One of the great things about no piano and having and early church schedule are afternoon naps. We sure don't get many of those. Yesterday should have been super relaxing with a nice long nap... But sometimes good things don't last, and our nap sure didn't last. For Christmas we received a cool little mirror in a frame I put it up Saturday afternoon using these 3M wall stick pads. The box, by the way, said that each sticky pad could hold up to two pounds. So I put 16 on the back and hung it up. It looked pretty solid to me. While we were taking our nap I was rudely awakened by a big crash. I cringed and I did not want to see the damage. When I came into the room I realized that the mirror was okay. I looked around to survey any damage. It took out one of our willow tree figures

and a really nice venetian glass bowl from Italy that my aunt Linda had given us for our wedding.

Lame!! I am so ticked that those stick pads didn't work. The figure we can easily replace, but the bowl... I'll just take a quick trip to Europe to get that.
While in the process of cleaning up we discovered that our floor was soaking wet. We investigated and figured that it was not coming from our apartment. After a little drama (Which included running back to church and Miss taking a tumble for the team) we had to pull the carpet up and tear out the padding underneath. The water invaded our kitchen (washer and dryer area)

and one of our closets. It did more damage to the hall on the other side of the wall. Who knows when this little mess will be fixed. So temporarily we have stuff everywhere. Good news though, I found some stuff in the closet that I didn't know we owned. So that is neat. Well that is all for now.

P.S. I am never waking up and surprising Miss with breakfast again. Because all I got was "I wanted pancakes" and back to sleep again. Mind you this was at 10:40 a.m.

Christmas Eve

So the Foster's always go to the Roof for Christmas Eve, and my family always has our traditional Swedish Christmas Eve. So this year my mom did our Swedish Christmas Eve on Sunday. We tried fresh cod this year instead of the frozen Lutefisk. It was quite delicious and was a lot better than the gelatinous Lutefisk. We also had an amazing bluberry jello, limpa bread, swedish meatballs (my favorite), herring (yuck!)and veggies. For dessert we always have snowballs. (vanilla ice cream rolled in coconut) I don't really care for vanilla ice cream much, so I usually spend most of the time lighting the coconut on fire with the candle.


This is where I found my kitty after dinner!

On Christmas Eve we went over to the Foster's for the usual Santa Breakfast. The boys spent most of the morning making a track outside to race remote control cars and snowmobiles. At the gift exchange his cousin Tessa gave us a gift certificate to Silver Fork Lodge (a lodge up Big Cottonwood Canyon). I am so excited to go and try their yummy brunch. Tessa was so thoughtful, since she knows I don't like chain restaurants :-)

This is us with Santa. When the grandkids were little they actually invited Santa to the breakfast, but now that they are older they figured this would do.

That night we went to the Roof and then looked at the lights in temple square. It was actually warm since it had snowed that day! After visiting our Foster grandparents we went to an organ recital; one of my favorite Christmas traditions. It is at my parents ward. All the lights in the chapel are off, except for the light on the organ. People come in their jammies all bundled up. At midnight the organist turns off the light on the organ, and people file out in the dark. People are always so quiet and only whipser. If only people were really that reverent in the chapel.

This is us at dinner!

Merry Christmas

It's here! Merry Christmas everyone. We hope you all got what you asked for and that all of your Christmas dreams come true! More to come on all our Christmas celebrations in a later post!

Not a Trax Virgin Anymore

Well about a week ago I was chatting with Steph and I told her that I had never ridden trax before. Crazy huh? Well I am happy to say that I am not a trax virgin anymore. We parked at the stadium and then rode with my parents to the Nutcracker, but we had to take Trax back because I had work party. Hooray! We have a tradition in my family of going to the Nutracker and Benihana the Saturday before Christmas. It was a blast as usual. Except this year I actually like sushi and so my family got about ten rolls. So my cousin Em and I ended up dressing like twins. Red pea coats, black pants and black flats. That head in the background is my uncle Norman. Bless his heart! I don't know why Preston isn't smiling. This is us hungrily awaiting our sushi! Some of the girl cousins! Can you tell that Melanie works at a tanning salon?

So the highlight of the night, was my work party. By 11 there were only 6 people sober. My friend Heather and her boyfriend, Preston and I, and Amanda and Toni that were both pregnant. This video is of one of our hairstylists Sandee. I teach her daughter Cheyenne. She was probably my favorite drunk. She always wanted to arm wrestle or leg wrestle everyone that night. Well she talked Heather's boyfriend into arm wrestling her. And she won because she LICKED his hand. The look on Matt's face was priceless. This is a video of Sandee riverdancing after drinking Prairie Fire (tequila and Tabasco microwaved for seven seconds)

Presents

Hooray we are ALL done with all of our shopping and wrapping. I am so proud! Usually I am wrapping gifts on Christmas Eve! Unfortunately the gifts don't really fit under our little tree!

Stockings and Chemo

So as many of you know my finger is infected with a virus that makes it split when I practice. The dermatologist claims it is a wart but for all you that have seen it, it sure doesn't look like it. However, when I went to the doctor yesterday he injected it with chemotherapy. My finger feels like it got slammed in the car door. In this picture although it isn't a very good picture, notice how my second finger is slightly white up to the first knuckle... (from all the chemo.) Yuck! and he made my finger bleed again. Awesome!


These stockings are the ones that we have at my work. Jamie made all of them! Crazy huh? She is so crafty. I think they are darling. We are doing secret santa. At least I didn't get the shaft this year. I have gotten hot chocolate with peppermint marshmellows, that yummy lippie from Bath and Body Works, and some lotion from Vicky's.



Sorry about the bad picture, but I was trying to avoid getting the clients butt. For my secret santa I got her body butter, heart chocolates from Cummings Chocolates and chocolates from Rocky Mountain Chocolated Factory. For the work party on Saturday I am getting her the Willow Tree Figure called Cherish (it is a mom that is pregnant and Amanda is due in April!


In this one you can see my cute stocking. It has jingle bells!

Extreme Chocolate

Kira this one is for you! So tonight we went on our usual date night with Em and Ryan. We were craving Mexican so we went to Tres Hombres. I had my usual. Mini Chimichangas. Absolutely delicious. Well after we headed to the Holladay Center to see I Am Legend. It's our favorite theater because it is never crowded, plus the tickets are about a dollar cheaper a person; always a bonus for poor newly weds! Well waiting for the movie to start, I was craving some ice cream from the Dairy Queen next door. I have never had one of their acclaimed blizzards, so I thought that I would try one. There was one called extreme chocolate which my dear hubbie decided to share with me. Well the minor problem was that it not only had fudge swirls and brownies, but it also had chocolate chunks. Which if you know me I hate hard chocolate. We decided to get the lid for the blizzard since we would probably have to "sneak" it into the theater.


I had been using the lid as my "spit cup" aka where I would spit all my chocolate chunks. Kirsten knows that everytime I get a cookie dough shake from Sconecutter, I always spit out the chocolate chunks. Nothing new right? Engrossed in a story, I looked down and found my spit cup empty. What? Leaning over to Preston, I asked if he had eaten the chocolate chunks. Clueless as he was he indeed had. Priceless. He was so mad at me. ( I think he dry heaved a little) I can't believe he never knew I spit out chocolate chunks. Oh and by the way I Am Legend is the scariest movie. I was dying the whole time. I am probably going to have to carry a flashlight around at night.

How I wish I had a camera

Last night after dropping my parents off after seeing a play at the Hale Center Theatre we were on our way home. As we drove past Churchill we saw a car in Churchill's parking lot "parking" Deciding that we weren't too old for fun, we drove into the parking lot and shined our brights on the car. A kid's head came popping up. Priceless. I think it was payback for all the times that I got caught, or the time that Madison and I got waterballooned (we were two girls, it's not like we were making out). Well I didn't have a camera. So sad. If only you could have seen the kids face. Who knows we probably saved them a trip to the bishop :-) jk. anyways I learned my lesson. The camera now goes everywhere with us.

Sweet Ride...

So as many of you know, I was the victim of a hit and run. Now for the nice part, I get to drive a sweet rental car until my car is done! This is the car that they gave me. A 2008 Passat with only 2000 miles (virtually brand new)


It has some pretty awesome features. Like for starters I had to call to find out where the park brake was. Oh it is just a button. How weird is that? The door lock switches change color when the door is locked. It also is a turbo so it has some great pick up.



This is probably my favorite feature. This isn't just the key faub, but it is the actually key. You just push it into the ignition and the car starts. How cool is that?



I am glad we submitted it to the old lady's insurance. She wanted to pay for it and have me take it to Dent Master's. Umm.. no thanks. Not to mention how would I trust that she would pay for it, she didn't even stop at the scene of the accident. Unfortunately my car should be done any day. (they told me a week and its already been a week and two days.) But for now I get to drive a sweet ride.

Christmas Decorations

So last year for Christmas I was kinda a grouch and didn't want to decorate, but this year I have been more into the Christmas spirit.



This is our humble tree. We finally got a tree skirt, but we still need an angel or a star for the top of our tree. The ornaments are pretty sentimental. There is a gorgeous Lenox that we got for our first Christmas. Also there are a few that my mom and dad painted when they were first married, and there are a few that I made when I was little.



This is our darling advent calendar that my mom got us this year. The drawer opens and there are the cutest painted ornaments to hang on each day.



This is our nativity. My parents gave us part of it for Christmas last year, and we are hopefully getting more pieces for Christmas this year. I love it because it is the Willow Tree figures and we had already gotten a couple hugging for our wedding. (which if you look very closely, you can see on our mantle)




This last idea was mine. I decided that we needed some more decorations. So voila. I think it kinda breaks up the monotony of the lovely ivory paint in our house :-) Which if we could only paint...

Gingerbread Cookies

Today was a fairly busy but relaxing Sunday. No practicing or homework. Wahoo! At church we ran into one of my cute friends Tara that was in Acapella with me at the U, and then we took a nice LONG nap. It was well needed considering I worked 11 hours yesterday. After our nap we went to a progressive dinner for Preston's mom's side of the family. The first house was up in Kaysville and it was a pretty long drive, but it was fun. There was a kitty sitting on the hood of our car when we went to leave. How random is that? They always do talent performances each year. His family is very musically talented, and of course they me play some of my recital again. After the progressive dinner we headed up to my mom's to make some gingerbread cookies. We only got to take a picture of mine because Preston decided to eat his. What a butt!


My cute kitty loves frosting!


I think my nose looks huge in this pic!



Preston has this problem where he likes to eat MY cookies. And this would be another prime example. It all started when his mom bought us dinner and got us 2 cookies. One for each of us. Well Preston bless his heart ate mine too; which keep in mind already had a bite taken out of it. So... when I got my cookie bouquet for my recital I have rarely shared ( he has had a few bites :-)

Saturday is a special day!

Today has been one lazy day for me...Awesome! I got to sleep in which was most needed because this past week has been stressful. Yeah I had finals too, and Miss will gladly tell me that my test were stupid compared to hers. What can I say they were relatively easy except my music theory final. I sure wish I would have paid more attention when I was younger to theory when my mom tried to teach me some. I guess I never thought it was that hard. Well I am sure glad I have Miss, she basically taught me this semester. The class material was complicated and really hard to understand. I took the test on Thursday and I am pretty sure It probably didn't go so well. I'm just glad it is over so I can focus on business classes like accounting and finance. So today I just took it easy.


I woke up showered and spent the morning watching crappy tv and playing Blitz football. Its an old game but I still have fun pulling out and playing it every once and awhile. It's relaxing. I think the things I love the most when trying to relax are Nintendo reading a good book and dorking around on itunes. If you know me very well you know I have a huge passion for music. which I'm glad Miss and I have similar tastes. I am proud to say that I have curbed my addiction to buying CDs. Before we were married I bought on average 3 or 4 cds a week. Pretty expensive habit for a couple of good songs on each cd. so now I spend only a couple of dollars every once and awhile on itunes.


What a dream i can purchase music when I am wearing pajamas. Anyway I washed my car only to drive it to my parents and get it dirty again. There is salt everywhere on the roads. I sure love our car. Miss is driving a sweet rental car (more on that in a later post)I drove it to work and school on Tuesday and I have to say that as much as I liked it I would much rather drive our Subaru. I also got to spend some time over at my parents house and chilled for awhile. Moral of the story today is that Saturdays are awesome when you don't have to work, but even better is when you and your spouse have the day off...not today. :(

So for those of you that don't know, I used to have quotes that adorned the wall of my room. One day I decided that they looked dumb and so I took them down, but I sure did love them. I still have the poem called Aim High from 6th grade memorized. Well the day before my recital, I had been practicing in one of the vocal teachers rooms. She always has inspirational quotes. A couple of years ago I found a darling book called The Blue Day Book, that has cute pictures of animals that are having a Bad Hair Days etc. It's hard to explain. Well the day before my recital I found this amazing poem that brought me to tears (not that it took much the week or so before my recital.) It reminded me of how many times I had failed in trying to get to my recital, but I never gave up, and I finally did it. I just wanted to share the poem.

Our willingness to experience failure and make mistakes affects our ability to succeed.

If we stand on the sidelines without trying we may escape the heartache of defeat, but we'll never know the joy of accomplishment.

If we're willing to stumble and sometimes even fall, we'll learn to grow and become strong.

We all make mistakes; we all face setbacks and experience our share of sorrow.

But somehow, someway, we can decide not to give up.

Keep Trying!

Cheaters!

I took my Anthropology final last night. It took me a grand 30 minutes to take the test and I was second to last to leave the room, i guess I'm the dumb one lol! I have always hated being the last to leave a test, weird I know, but this time it just made me mad. Let me explain, when my teacher passed out her test she ended up 8 tests short...Oops! She told us to pass them back in while she went to print more copies, but many of the students had already started and complained that they shouldn't have to pass them back in. She gave in and told us that we could not start writing our answers until she returned, but that we could talk amongst ourselves about the questions on our test. I thought that was kind of cheap because I had studied the material and was confident. I chatted a little with a couple of people but I didn't learn anything new. Here is where I was disappointed. as soon as she left many in my class started circling and writing down answers (something she told us not to do) and collaborating with each other. Most of the class was finished in less than 15 minutes. I guess the moral of the story is KNOW HOW MANY STUDENTS YOU HAVE!!! I mean she has been spending 3 hours a week with us for the past 3 months. I am proud to say that I chose not to cheat because I wanted the grade I studied for. Which could very well be a C but if that was what I deserved than that's great. I don't think I'll get a C I should get an A. :-) I'm just glad that class is over. It wasn't my favorite topic.... and cheating is stupid. I'm glad she wasn't grading on a curve.

Gratitude

My cute teacher Bonnie Winterton when I went over to her house on Wednesday evening told me after I performed for her, that she was just stunned and that I had accomplished the impossible. And that I hadn't done it alone, heaven had helped me. She proceeded to give me an hour worth of motivational advice. I love her so much. She is truly my second grandma. The main thing that she told me was to be grateful and thankful. So for this post I just want to say thank you to my absolutely amazing friends. Two of them posted blogs about my recital that just brought me to tears. I am sure that I am not the best friend or wife in the world. I spend more time with the piano then I do them. The more I thought about my friendship with my friends the memories came flooding back. First Nicole. Where to even start... There was our I love Tysen yellow visors that we made, not to mention singing our little hearts out the window hoping he would hear? I can't quite remember... Then there was the time that we tried to repel out of her bedroom window. The long walks home from elementary. Carpool, and early morning seminary along with Nicole's usual breakfast...candy :-) I especially remembering feeling particularly embarrassed when my dad would put chains on our old white volvo to drive carpool. Then of course there was the time we pierced our ears at a young women activity. Who could forget cheer. I remember feeling like a taxi driver when I drove her and Madison around. I always loved the swim meets. And I still have Nicole's wrestling cheer memorized. I am still proud to say that I taught Nicole how to do a backbend. And today she can do standing back tucks. Wow! I still remember the day that I saw Nicole when she was first engaged up at the U, and I remember crying at her wedding luncheon when her dad got emotional about how she had changed her name when she moved to the cove and then she was changing it again. My most recent memory besides Steph's shower was how fun it was to talk to her all during graduation and catch up. I don't think I have ever met anyone that could talker faster than Nicole. She could say the 13th article of faith in like 3 seconds. Nads is catching up to her though! And Steph... Oh where to start. We always had fun together in cheer. But I think it was really Calculus that brought us together. For starters we took pictures during class. Seriously who does that? Cafe Rio wednesdays when we almost went back for seconds. The lovely mold of my teeth along with my tooth bleaching kit that she made me. Ah and banana face and the pvs :-) Our frolic in the sun shirts. Alden telling us that we were making him dummer. How we switched gum and I broke her jacket. Alden ripping the page out of his book. Sayes' squirting Laverna in the face. The good old times at blue boutique. The awards banquet to which this day I still hate hamburgers. Stalking and the snowman head on Kira's car. St. George and rescuing me from James. (thank you!!) Me sleeeping the whole drive down when you and Kira saw the whale in the road. The speeding ticket we got that I swear we were going way below the speed limit. The ugly girl and her noises...The three of us fitting in one bed. You cooking us a lovely halibut dinner. Oc nights. Making Valentine cookies need I say more? Our matching robes! Sitting in emissions plus and finding out you were pregnant. Having you be my escort at my wedding. The si seventh. Poppy. Graduation. cleaning up my house after being toilet papered. The monster in my basement freezer. Moulin Rouge. The tip at Fridays. Our teddy bears at the Calculus test. Our matching Nalgenes which if I see our Writing teacher ever again.... cup of noodles in my dorm. A puntcum? Dangerous Liasons. PF changs and getting my moms car stuck! Most recently being the victims of a hit and run! The one thing I love about Steph is that we think alike whether it is something mean about someone, or even when it comes to O chem!

I have the best friends in the whole world. I hope some of these memories brought a smile to their face like it did to mine when I thought about them. I love them so much! Thank you for making my life wonderful.

Christmas Tree Hunt

So.. a long family tradition in my family is to cut down our Christmas tree. After arguing with Preston and telling him that a "fake" or artificial Christmas tree as he liked to call it, just didn't fly with me, he finally agreed to go and cut down our Christmas tree with my family the day after Thanksgiving, although he told me that he would much rather sleep in. That morning it took a long time to finally get a start, which including heading back to our house to get my snow boots which I didn't end up needing, since there was absolutely NO snow. (Keep in mind there is usually a couple of feet) We ate breakfast at Chicks in Heber which was delicious and then headed up to cut down our tree. The place that we cut it down is by Millhollow for any of you that have ever been. After a hunt for a tree we finally found a perfect little tree, which was just perfect for our place. (My parents got their usual 20 ft tree.) I think that despite what Preston thought at first that he actually had fun!

The second picture is of us pretending to sled down the usual sledding hill!