Our Christmas Date

This Saturday Marshall and I made a date out of an amazing Christmas gift from my brother's family. We started by going to Macaroni Grill in SLC (using a gift card from one of Mr. Kay's students), which for us is a real treat because we NEVER go out to eat. The wait on the table was about an hour so we just gave the lady our phone number instead of getting a little buzzer thing and we walked to Temple Square to see the lights.
It is such a nice thing to do around this time because it is so beautiful and something different than your normal day to day. So after the lights and after the dinner we went to the Jon Schmidt Christmas Concert at Kingsbury Hall. It was AMAZING! Marsh and I are really into things like this and it has been a while since we have been so we were both super stoked! Thanks to Marshall's student for dinner and thanks to my brother for our entertainment! We had such a good night.

But it didn't end there... Marshall and I have a bad habit of hearing about a show that is super good after it has been aired and we stream in from netflix. The problem is we get ADDICTED! Last year it was Lost, we would wake up watching lost and go to be watching Lost, it was out of control. Well, it was nice when it ended because we got our lives back but now it is Prison Break.We stayed up til 4 AM watching the stupid show and woke up at 11 and turned it right back on. Excuse me if I can't get enough of a little Wentworth Miller!

Scenic Drive

This is what I saw on my way to work the other morning. Couldn't help but put my life and those around me in danger to snap a photo... oops.

Happy Birthday Marshall!!

It was Marshall's birthday on Monday and boy did he get SPOILED rotten! We started it out Friday night by going to the Jazz vs. Orlando game, Jazz won, go Jazz! Then we rented a room in the downtown Marriott so that we could just make a night of it and not worry about going home. Our room had an AMAZING view of the city, especially the SL Temple. It was a great idea... until... the construction started at 7AM on Saturday! We laid there and tried to pretend it was not happening but eventually we got up and went home. Then Sunday we had a few friends over for a small birthday dinner party which turned out great in my opinion. Out of the 3 couples there there were two birthdays on the 13th and one on the 14th, weird. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the dinner but it was a way good time. It certainly makes us want to host more often. And as for gifts, well, he got: a shop vac, a ladder, shoes, dress socks, a tie, $$$ and some DVD's from the History channel. What a lucky guy!

I am so sad this picture didn't turn out. It was such a beautiful view :(

Time with the neph

The past few months Marshall and I have been having our nephew AJ over one night for a slumber party. It has been quite the learning experience. Kids crack me up to say the least. He was over a couple weeks ago and in the morning before we took him home we took him to the Museum of Natural History. Marshall, more so than anyone, was WAY into it. He likes to read all the plaques and stuff. I was pretty into it to, especially the gem & dinosaur sections. AJ on the other hand... well... not so much. He just wanted to play his harmonica through the quite museum. Ha ha. He does however like getting his picture taken. Like a dummy, I forgot our camera so I just used my phone, I apologize for the poor quality.


One of my favorite things AJ does is, he will ask me for something and if I say no he will ask Marshall, right in front of me, like Marshall is so powerful he can trump what I say or as if I didn't hear him ask Marshall and I won't object. It is hilarious the way kids minds work. It makes me laugh every time he does it, and it is quite frequent ;o)

Our tree

Last year Marshall's mom gave us a cute little tree that fit great in our little apartment. This year we decided that we will not be getting fresh cut trees until we have kids so we pulled out the ole' fakey again. The ornaments are great, decorating it was great but gee golly it looks pretty dang dinky in front of that big ol' window. Oh well, maybe I will find a good deal on a big one after Christmas this year so we can have it for next year. Besides the dinkyness we think it turned out pretty darn jazzy. (I do need to make a tree skirt in the near future though).

Christmas Traditions

Every year we make gingerbread houses at Marshall's mom's house. This year is our best house yet. It is our gingerbread log cabin! Marshall has never been as into it as he was this year. He was a man on a mission! He was measuring and cutting pretzel logs with all his heart. Oh good times.

Gifts

Our anniversary is approaching so I have been asking Marshall to give me some ideas of what he may want. He decided that he wants to start going winter camping, why, I do not know but regardless he said he wanted a winter sleeping bag. So, when Chris was in town for Thanksgiving we all went to REI to find a goodie. We looked, and looked and looked. They finally found one they liked but it had no price so I took it up to the guy to ask how much it was and I also asked if it was waterproof. The guy replied "will you be in a tent" apparently the look on my face said it all because he immediately asked where my husband was. ha ha ha. So, anyways, the trip was successful, we found Marshy a bag but I told him he had to wait until our anniversary to have it (not really) and apparently he just couldn't wait another day because when I went down stairs the other day, this is what I found...
Snug as a bug in a rug.

He said he just wanted to test it out.

We did the UNTHINKABLE!!!

We invited BOTH families over for Thanksgiving! Insert gasp here! When we told people we were doing this we got nothing but surprised reactions. It turned out great! I didn't get any pictures of the 18 people we had over but I did get some of us preparing the meal.
Fred making the nut cups
Marshall making the favors
My grandma & my mom slaving away.
Fred eating said nut cups. Busted!
My mom, me and my grandma
Marshall getting ready to carve the turkey. I love how he gets into whatever we are doing. As soon as he saw Grandma Bonnie with her apron he ran and got his on.

There are so many things to be grateful for this year and I am so glad I got to spend the holiday with everyone at the same time in the comfort of my own home instead of running around to house after house. It was a lot of work but it turned out great.

And it all began...

My grandma came over to bake bread for the stuffing on Thanksgiving and while her and I were busy baking, Marshall kept my grandpa company. My grandpa looked at the foosball table and said "what is this?" It was over from there. Him and Marshall played and played. It was hilarious. My grandpa and Marshall have always gotten along really well, maybe it is there same dry sense of humor ;o) After several rounds, they decided to watch clips on the internet about falconry. Marshall is now trying to convince my grandpa to get a falcon to train and my grandpa is trying to talk me into getting Marshall one for his birthday. Um... no thanks!

Snow and your inner child

Last night while Marshy and I were eating dinner we heard some kids outside of our house playing in the giant snow storm. So Marshall decides he is going to throw snow balls at them. Our front door is kind of hidden between our front bay window and our garage so you are not super visible unless you are looking directly at the door. So he starts throwing them and they don't notice until one of them hits the ground right at one of the kids feet and the snow bounces up and hits his leg. He looks around and Marsh and I were giggling so it got his attention and he started throwing them back. I shut the door and went in so snow didn't get in the house but Marshall stayed out there and had a snowball fight until he could no longer feel his fingers. I have a picture of when Marsh came in the house all covered in snow, I will post it later. Good old Marshall, making a great impression on all the kids in the neighborhood. It makes me smile.

Chiropractor part II

So I went back to the Chiropractor today for the rest of my adjustment and to go over my x-rays. So what did we find out? My hips are twisted, not only a little but a lot and this is a major part of why my back constantly hurts and I also have minor minor Spina bifida, meaning my backbone and spinal canal did not close before birth. It is only present on my bottom vertebrae and cannot be fixed but it is only a small part of the problem. It was very interesting to get a lesson on the back bone via my x-rays. Unfortunately, in order for the doc to fix what he can of the problem it will cost around $1000. I am going to try to stretch more and do Pilates or Yoga religiously and see if I can begin correcting the problem naturally, my own way before going and getting yanked, cracked and twisted around. Here goes nothin'.

Bonding

I was bored on Sunday so I decided to try out my new cookie cutter set. I made sugar cookies and 4 colors of frosting. Marshall told me he wanted to help frost but when we still had about 25% left he said it sucked. When I asked him why he wanted to help he told me "because we are bonding". Okay then. His process was quite interesting. First he would dip the cookie face down into the frosting, then spread, then repeat with 2 more cookies then sprinkle all three. Hey, whatever floats your boat!

Dip...
Then spread...
Then sprinkle
Marshall's tray of cookies.
Don't remember this being taken. Sorry for my "snow day" apparel. I cleaned, did laundry and made cookies. No reason to get all fancy.
My tray

Decorating... Decorating... Decorating...

This seems to be a never ending process. Trying to fill our home with things that make us happy, display who we are and look jazzy all at the same time. Marshall is just as into it as I am which makes our home even better, now you get his style and mine combined which makes it truly unique.

Above our coat closet in the front room there was an empty ledge. We never really knew what we wanted up there but we knew we wanted something because it was bare and boring. The other day Marshall said he figured it out and he was going to the garage. This is what he came up with...A beautiful homemade planter box filled with plants we had around that needed a home!
The best part was watching him get it up there. Apparently it was SUPER heavy.

And Vwala!
Besides looking a little lopsided because the 4th plant is small and cannot be seen it turned out pretty darn awesome. And when that little guy grows in it will look even better!

Giving

Marshall and I have talked a lot about Christmas recently and how sad it is that the majority of people we talk to are not excited for the holiday because of money. The idea of Christmas and the season for giving is almost lost and it is actually really sucky. We have decided to try and bring that back to our family and the first step was making beenies for the homeless. Last year my mom decided that she wanted to give back and she started buying a thing of yarn every time she was at the store and she would crochet, crochet, crochet until her fingers were sore. She did this all year, anytime you saw her she had her crochet bag, just in case she would have a spare minute to get some stitches in. She ended up donating over 500 beenies to a homeless shelter in Salt Lake. It was truly amazing, especially seeing how gratifying it was and apparently it is rubbing off on Marsh and I.His school is making stockings for the homeless and Marshall volunteered to make beenies for it. So, I taught him the basics, like how to chain, single crochet and double crochet and although he struggled and was frustrated he got the hang of it... slowly...My mother came up later that day and showed us how to make the beenies. I loved to see Marsh working so hard at it, he was determined to do it correctly and learn it, even though his fingers constantly kept getting in the way. He really stepped out of his comfort zone on this project and I think it is amazing!

My trip to.... the Chiropractor

So, I am not a huge "believer" in Chiropractor practice. I have my reasons. But for the past 7-8 years I have started having serious problems with my back. Some days it was all I could do to get through the day at work but once I got home it was OVER. I was useless. I wobbled around like a penguin and getting up from sitting down... pshaw... it took FOR EVER. Usually the pain would go away and I would be fine the next day and I would do it all over again. Like I said, some days were worse than others. Well last night I was fine during the day but we went to a play of our cousins that evening and it was miserable! About 20 minutes in Marshall and I both started doing the wiggle worm in our seats, making it appear we are super board and cant sit still but in fact we were just trying to reposition so we could watch the play without all the agony and pain. By intermission it took every bone in my body to get up out of that chair and walk around to stretch but the worst part was right when I sat back down. It was awful! Well, this morning I woke up still in pain and this has never happened before so I was a little freaked out. After all, your back is kind of important! So I went to work and started talking to my boss about it because I know she has had some back problems in the past. She basically pushed me out the door and started my car for me and sent me on my way to see a dreaded Chiropractor. I cannot stand the sound of people cracking their fingers and the thought of doing it to myself is appalling so thinking of someone doing it to my SPINE really freaked me out. My boss told me it would be super simple, 15 minutes tops, they would adjust me and send me on my way feeling better than ever. Wrong.

First thing is a giant questioner with the assistant about my pain. Then homeboy tells me to get totally undressed and put on a robe thingy for x-rays. Okay fine. Then the doctor comes... dun dun dun... he lays me face down on this table and says this exact thing "alright, I am just going to feel around for WHOA, theres one" There is one what?!

The RESULTS: My whole shiz is crooked! Yeah, that is right. Starting at the top of my lower back the bone starts shifting to the right and as you get further down it gets worse. He did the first 1/2 of the adjustment but because it was so bad he said that he could only do half today because it was going to make the pain worse and my muscles needed time to heal before he could do the other half. GREAT. So he popped a bunch of crap and it sucked and I left feeling like an owl and all I could do was move my eyes because it hurt so FREAKING bad! He also told me that my right leg was off balance by a 1/2 inch. Back problems are a domino effect I have decided.

Oh yay for me, I get to go back on Monday for more fun with Mr. Chiropractor of death! Maybe he knew I had mixed emotions so he is putting me through hell on purpose.
Here I am, 26 going on 90!

Next time my back hurts I am just going to go get a massage.

Date Night

The ONLY thing we miss about not having cable is not being able to watch the Jazz games. It especially hurts when we hear about them and how freaking amazing they are doing this year. We decided that it was time to go to a game, it was time that we see our new team rocking the new uniforms and why not make a date out of it. No more dinner and a movie for us, no no my friends, it is now dinner and a Jazz game!! So... alas... we did... And we saw them from the 22nd row need I mind you. It was awesome, all the way until they lost at the VERY end. Oh well, ya win some ya lose some. Go Jazz!

RC

This weekend Marshall and his brother went to pick up our new couch (yay). Afterwords we took Nathan (Marshall's brother) and Logan (our nephew) to lunch for helping us. Whenever we need a truck Nathan is always there willing to help so we thought it would be the least we could do. Anyways, so after lunch we were headed back to Nathan's house to pick up Marshall's car and we decided to stop and play with Nathan's new RC car for a little bit. It was way fun and Logan totally digs it! Marshall was getting INTO it! If the battery hadn't died I have a feeling we would have been there for quite some time. It is pretty tricky to steer and it goes insanely fast so it easily gets your interest and makes you want to be able to get power over the thing and be able to show it who is boss. Only 2 of our nephews live around here so whenever we get the chance to hang out we love to take advantage of it. Marshall bounced the car off the curb once and it did a couple flips and brushed Logan so he was pretty timid after that. As you can see in the second picture, he still wants to be part of the action but only if he is behind someone thus they can take the hit if Driver Marshall can't get his act together.

Can't you get a tarp or something?

I was driving home from work last week sometime, la de da de da and I noticed this truck next to me...Okay, no big deal, la de da de da. But look closer...Yeah, there was a dead deer, on its back, with its legs just floppin' around. Instead of wrapping it in the tarp they laid it ON the tarp. Stupid idiots! I am not timid when it comes to these kinds of things but geez laweeze I don't exactly want to see dead deer legs floppin' around on my way home from work just before I cook dinner. Cover that up man!