Furniture Fun!

Josh & I have lived in our apartment for about a year and a half. It's only a one-bedroom but we're pretty sure we're going to stay here for another 8-10 months. It's fairly inexpensive and, frankly, we don't want to move. Steven sleeps through the night so he doesn't bother us in our room and we're not feeling too cramped yet. I agreed to stay here on one condition: that I could rearrange the furniture & put everything wherever I wanted it. I took before, during, and after pictures and I think you'll see why I wanted to rearrange everything.

This is the view from where the fireplace is. (Northwest corner) We originally put the couches on the side they are in this picture because they wouldn't fit on the other side if we had the TV in there. (We moved the TV into our bedroom so we should've done this a long time ago...)
View from opposite corner (behind the couch)

In the process. View from Southwest corner. (The way to get the shot from the opposite side was blocked)

View from fireplace during the transition

All done! View from fireplace. Josh's desk is still a mess but I am not going to deal with that right now...

View from opposite side (behind the table.View when you come in the door. Before, Josh's desk almost blocked your path completelyYay! I'm so glad it's done! It feels sooooo much bigger :) Merry Christmas to me :)

Wicked

So the broadway musical "Wicked" is coming to Salt Lake City in April. It will be here for about a month. Tickets went on sale yesterday. I was at work and I checked the website when I had a minute (it was a slow day) but our internet is slow and I think there were a TON of people trying to get on that website. Anyway, I checked again when I got home and EVERY show, we're talking like 30 or more shows, was sold out. In a matter of hours, 30+ shows sold out. How crazy is that? And it's not necessarily because a ton of people bought tickets, it's because many many people who stood in line and got on line right at 10 am bought extra tickets so they could scalp them. By the time the tickets were sold out, there were already ads online for tickets at double (or more) the face value of the ticket! Now, I understand the appeal of wanting to make a buck, especially around Christmas time. And yes, scalping is an easy way to do it. But seriously! I have been wanting to see this musical for over 4 years. Now when it FINALLY comes to Utah I can't go, due in large part to scalpers. Who knows if I would've been able to get a ticket anyway, but all those people buying extra for profit certainly didn't help. It's very frustrating. I still plan on seeing it some day but I really am not willing to pay $300 a ticket for crappy seats.

Car

About 3 years ago I bought my 1997 Honda Civic. It didn't really give me any problems until about a year and a half ago. It looks pretty nice in this picture but now it's much more ghetto-licious ;) I only have 2 hubcaps (one on each side), my front bumper is broken and held together with a plastic pull tie, it was broken into a year and a half ago and so the black side panel on the outside of one of the widows is missing (thank goodness they didn't actually break my window, though! Nice thieves...). The little lever you pull inside to open the hood is partially missing so I have to use a wrench to pull the lever now...anyway, you get the point. Besides the cosmetic aspect, over the past 18 months or so I've had to take it in to get fixed at least 4 times. And of course, all of these times the bill comes out to $400 or more. Two days ago takes the cake, however. My check engine light came on a little bit ago so I went to Autozone for a free engine light check (yay Autozone!). They told me my catalytic converter wasn't working efficiently so on Monday I took it in to get checked out. I also knew that my brakes needed fixing or replacing so I was expecting a fairly pricey bill. With Christmas coming up I would have waited a little while if possible, but we're driving to California right after Christmas and I wanted my car in top working order. Yesterday after work I went to go pick it up (which is a bit tricky because Josh's car fits him and MAYBE one other person if it's clean and we have 3...) and the bill ended up being $1200. Yes, the decimal is in the right place. Now it seems easier to put that on a credit card and pay it off slowly, but with all the times we've had to get it fixed recently, it probably would've been better to get a newer car. Ahh the dilemas of life...can't really afford to fix my car, can't really afford a newer one, and definitely can't afford not to fix it. Anyway, it gets better. I give him my card (because, honestly, who really has $1200 to lay down at Christmastime??) and, lucky me, it's declined. Apparently my credit card company has lowered my limit without informing me. In the long run that's good but right now, not so fun. I didn't have another card with me that would work so I went home to get Josh. When I went back, the place was closed.

I don't want to sound like I'm whining or anything but all of this is just really frustrating and I needed to get it out. So hopefully in about 20 minutes the place will be opened and I can go get it. If anything else goes wrong with my car in the next few months, I am so done. Anyone want to buy a car??? It should be good now...

Thanksgiving

This year we spent Thanksgiving with Josh's family at the Grand America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake. This is our third Thanksgiving as a married couple and the first one with Josh's family. That's a little sad! Josh's mom likes the idea of not actually having to spend the whole day cooking; she'd rather just enjoy the food and not have to clean up! I have to say that after this year I'm beginning to agree with her. In my family, Thanksgiving takes all day to prepare and there's lots of great food. Some of my favorite memories are spent in the kitchen, on Thanksgiving and otherwise. I love the food my mom makes and I definitely missed her stuffing this year. It was nice to have such a huge variety of food, however, and NO CLEAN UP! Both ways are awesome, and it's so nice to be able to have the option of doing something different.

Turkeys made out of bread

Turkey ice sculpture

Plate #1. They had a build-your-own-crepe station

Plate #2. I actually did not eat any turkey that day. Lamb & prime rib but no turkey (I'm actually not that big of a fan)

Plate #3

Plates #4 &5. They stole this crepe before I was done!
My sister-in-law Chirin. She had a small amount of "real" food and then went straight for the desserts. To each their own!
Chirin's own little jar of jam. Fancy!
Chirin needed some coke after all that dessert because she got nauseated. Silly girl.... ;)
Chirin found the candy after all that dessert. She discovered jawbreakers. Now a new favorite

Grandpa and Steven
Josh & I. He refuses to make normal faces!

Josh's family; L-R: Jeremy, Josh, me, Steven, Chirin, Rhonda, David, SteveSteven, Josh, & I

Happy Birthday to me!

I had my 23rd birthday on November 22nd. It was a great day :) In the early afternoon I went up American Fork Canyon with my some of my family. It was a little cold but it was fun. I looooove chilli-cheese dogs! Mmmmm. That night we went to Josh's parent's house to have my family dinner with his side. We also watched the BYU/Utah game. We won't talk about it.

My sister, Ginelle, & I

Marc & I showing how cold it was (we exaggerated a little) ;)

Josh & I...too bad he's not looking at the camera

This was really the most normal face I could get from him...

We totally made the same face without even knowing it!

Lucky Steven...all warm & cozy in his nice little carseat cave

Marc & I

Steven was completely sucked into the BYU/Utah game

Seriously sucked in...
Josh & Stevie :)Blowing out my candles on the BEST CAKE EVER! :)
I got my dark peppermint ice cream! :)
Josh's mom gives each kid a basket full of their favorite goodies. Here I am with mine and a shower of chocolate :)

St. George

So last weekend my brother, Dave & his wife, Mary, took my younger brother, Marc on a little vacation to St. George. Marc got back from Sweden about 6 weeks ago & they wanted to spend some fun time with him. I wanted to spend some time with him as well, and since he was going back to California soon after they got back, Steven & I met them down there. We stayed in a really nice resort that Josh & I have ownership in & had tons of fun. I'm really grateful I was able to go down, even though I was only there for about 2 days. I was pretty jazzed that it only took me about 4 hours to get there...who knew the speed limit was 75?? I sure didn't but I was pleasantly surprised around Payson! Anyway, here are pictures! :)

I actually got pulled over on the way to meet my family. I'd been so paranoid about getting pulled over the entire way down! I was really careful to watch my speed on the freeway, but when I got off, I was not so diligent. I was used to going 80-85 & I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have...The officer told me I was going 69 in a 55. Whoops! He did not give me a ticket, though! I have no idea why...I was completely shocked. Elated, but shocked. I didn't even have to use my feminine whiles ;) This is the spot where I got pulled over. I was so happy that I didn't get a ticket that I had to document it for the ages.

Stupid small pictures! What's the deal?? Anyway, I don't know how well you can tell because it's so small, but I was playing Wii while feeding Steven. Notice that I am keeping the bottle in place with my chin. You've got to become multi-talented when you become a parent.Feeding Steven

Sammy & Steven. She & I were in cahoots. We surprised everyone when she showed up :)

Sammy & Ethan

Marc asked me to take a picture of him jumping. It caught on & we all got in on the fun!

This is me jumping over my brother. The picture didn't quite work out the way we wanted it to...

Can you believe my brother is doing the SPLITS?????????!?!?

We should be an AT&T commercial...

Ah, such sibling love

The theater near our resort opened up another theather for the midnight showing of Twilight. This is us waiting for the movie to start.

Another shot of us waiting for Twilight (which was AWESOME by the way! I've already seen it twice!)

What is this?? 1999??

Okay, so I know gas has been under $2 more recently than 1999, but it sure feels like it's been that long! I don't know when the last time was that I saw gas prices so low, but it's definitely been at least 4 years. I am definitely not complaining, I'm just a bit in shock. I honestly never thought I'd see the day when gas went below $2 again. To think that just a few months ago we were paying over $4! I totally think the oil companies have a conspiracy going on. They drive the prices of gas up to the point where we're all sick of it and start looking for alternative fuel sources. Right when people are getting fired up about greener energy, the price plumets to $1.73! Ridiculous. Anyway...I feel a little lame posting on my blog about gas prices, but I get pretty fired up about it...that's just me!

I filled up for $1.86 almost two weeks ago at Costco!
This was taken on Friday night (the 21st). It's a little hard to read but it says $1.73 for regularThis isn't gas related, but I thought it was cool that my car has over 200,000 miles on it! I wanted to get it right when it turned but I wasn't paying enough attention! Not every part of my car has that many miles on it but still, pretty cool!