Tag! I'm it....

My friend, Amber tagged me a little while ago and I haven't done it yet :-) So, here is some useless/random facts about me!

8 Favorite TV shows:
1. The office
2. Gilmore Girls
3. Biggest Loser
4. Arrested Development
5. Ace of Cakes
6. Iron Chef (haha...)
7. Little People, Big World
8. Sports- watching the Celtics, Red Sox, BYU... and no I'm not really a Patriots fan.. never really was

8 Favorite Foods:
1. Indian food- Jon and I are always willing to make an excuse to eat it.
2. Mexican Food
3. Gum.. okay, not a food.. but Jon called me a "chain chewer" the other day. I need to go to Gum Chewers Anonymous haha
4. Tortillas
5. Fresh fruis- esp. purple grapes (frozen are the best!), black berries, raspberries...
6. Anything w/ chocolate
7. Anything in a tortilla or lettuce wrap
8. Fish- I love fish. Jon could care less about it. So, it's a limited food item in our home. Maybe once a year. This summer though, you can count on me having lobster when we're back in NH visiting.

8 Things That Happened Yesterday:
Considering yesterday was Sunday... I'll write about Saturday
1. Went to the temple
2. Took Leanna to get her haircut- it looks really good!
3. Went running on the track
4. Made awesome turkey burgers for dinner
5. Went to the BYU vs. San Diego State game w/ Jon, Leanna and Cody
6. Jon and I treated ourselves to some ice cream at Sonic after the game
7. Went grocery shopping.
8. Got stuck in the rain/hail storm

8 Things I Look Forward To:
1. Jon graduating in April 2010
2. Going to NH in May and going to a Red Sox game!!
3. Having the snow melt haha
4. Being able to run outside again
5. Moving to TX in the future
6. Jon competing in the Omniture contest
7. Hanging out with my awesome friends!
8. Holidays

8 Things I Love about Winter
1. Watching the snow fall
2. going to Soldier Hollow for sledding
3. Reminds me of when we got married
4. Having a white Christmas
5. Seeing the snow on the mountains
6. Having an excuse to drink hot chocolate
7. Snowboarding- whenever I get the chance- which is rare
8. Remembering the igloo I once built with my dad back home

8 Things on my Wish List:
1. A Boston Terrier
2. A Zune for Jon
3. To someday have a house
4. To have my own washer/dryer- oh to do laundry w/o quarters- what a dream! :-)
5. a new lap top- mine served a good life but is now currently in a cabinet collecting dust.
6. New clothes... always on my wish list even if I don't need them! (I second Amber on that)
7. To go snowboarding in UT (I know, shocker.. I haven't been in UT- just whenever I go back home in the winter is when I go)
8. New scriptures- mine are starting to fall apart.

So there you go, hopefully you learned something about me that you didn't already know! Now I tag Jon, JoSue, Allie, Andrea, Leanna and Vanessa!

Warmer months can't come fast enough...

We are now officially in the "dog days of winter". If it's not snowing, it's freezing. If my car hasn't been plowed in- the car in front of me is stuck and then makes it difficult for me to get out as well. If tenants aren't complaining about ice everywhere- well, they will be soon. Summer can't come fast enough! However, at the same time, for the most part, I don't want summer to come at all. Just bring on the warmer temps and leave the summer months as far away as possible.

Why the madness? Well, if you haven't heard, Jon accepted an internship this summer with Deloitte in Houston, TX. Hurray! It's a really good thing and a really good fit (so far) for our family.

So, why don't I want summer to come? It's not because of the hot and humid weather that lives in Houston- but it's because I can't go with him. Sad, I know. I was gone all last summer and my boss was nice enough to give me my job back in the fall. Well, I finally got the guts to talk to him about this upcoming summer (hoping for a miracle). I told him that we needed to talk to him before we started to plan anything because we wanted to respect him. Well, after the talk he originally said that I could go and visit Jon for a week in June. I was horrified. I then talked my way into letting me go once in June and once in July. I felt like I was asking my dad to go to my friend's house as if I were in high school (hehe).

I know that we all have to make sacrifices and this will be a great opportunity for our family (the internship that is... not the being alone for 10 weeks). It will be hard- but worth it in the end. I'm excited that I will be able to see Jon. We'll plan it so I won't see him for 2 weeks, then I'll see him for a little over a week, then 2-3 weeks w/o seeing him and then i see him for a week and then he comes home in a few weeks after that. At least I'll have something to look forward too.

One of the things that I am most thankful for is that Jon will be able to live at his parent's house. It is such a blessing. Jon won't have to find housing for 10 weeks and he will have his family with him. It's also great that he's going to the place he grew up in. He won't be completely lost like we were in Arkansas last summer for our first few weeks.

Congrats, Jon! I love you and am proud of you. Keep up the good work!

The Exeter Inn

My sister, Shannon sent this out to my family. She works at the Exeter Inn as the catering sales manager. She plans all kinds of events and the place itself is amazing! They just got done with a remodel and it is really nice.

Anyways, a tv show did a review on their restaurant and this is a short video about it. Just thought I'd share it with everyone. Congrats, Shannon!

Today I am thankful to live on the 2nd floor.

I woke up this morning to no hot water. When you turned the hot water knob- nothing would even come out. I thought it may be the boiler, but we were still getting heat. Because I was trying to get out the door, I didn't worry too much. As I was leaving and locking up to go to work our trusty maintenance guy, Lyle was coming up the stairs and hanging wet carpet from the railing (too bad the carpet is just going to freeze instead of dry...)

I asked if the boiler was out.

Turns out a line burst.

The couple right below us woke up to a flood in their bedroom.

Sew What??

I have been meaning to do a blog about all my projects that I have been up to for the last 3-4 months. After returning from Arkansas I received a sewing machine! I can't tell you how excited I am to have one. I haven't done much sewing in my life- aside from those awesome McKelvie Middle School's Home Ec. projects, so this was an adventure.

When Jon and I visited his family this summer in Houston they gave me all the pieces to make an ottoman. As most of you know, I am vertically challenged :-) I have a tough time reaching the floor while sitting on most couches. I was so thankful for this ottoman. It started out as a wooden box.

We then wrapped it with badding and attached a foam piece to the top of it.


I then proceeded to cut out all the sides- I know, I know... I could have done it
so much better- but I had never covered anything before...
Final project!!
After I was done, I had enough left over material to make to pillows
for our love-seat :-)

This next project was a little different. Our bedroom was seriously lacking some color. Our bed doesn't have a head board as of yet- and it was just looking a little boring. We decided that we wanted to make "curtains" to cover the wall behind the bed. We did curtains because of our movie nights that we have. We rent Red Box movies most Monday nights (with an awesome free code. Thanks, Anne for starting us on that!!) We put the movie on a projector and watch it on the wall behind our bed- thus the need for curtains.

Before

After

Okay... so the design is really busy.... we liked it in the store and it took a while to get used to. I think if we got a dark red cover for our comforter it would look much better- but it definitely livens up the white walls!!

Yay for movie nights!!

And lastly, I have been making baby blankets for my friends. I have had so much fun doing them! I was surprised how well they came out. :-)

Baby boy blanket above

Baby girl blanket below
(note the pillow in the picture that matches the ottoman!)

This last one is a nursing cover or its other well known name a "hooter hider". I told this to my sister and she laughed quite a bit because she had never heard of it. this one was fun to make. I have never had to sew with boning before or D-rings. I just borrowed my friend's to get measurements and went off of that.

This picture isn't showing any sewing projects- but this is our new and improved living room. We got this entertainment center at Ikea for $80 and the little dvd holders on the side were $6/ea. Our book shelf, that you can't see here, was completely over flowing and we needed something else to organize everything. Thank goodness for Christmas bonuses :-)

This is our Christmas tree that we failed to put on our Christmas blog :-)

I apologize for this lengthy picture blog, but if I didn't do it now, it would never get done!

Happy New Year!!