"I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas...."

ok. not really. i'm perfectly content with a christmas sans snow, although it is pretty.

i suck at blogging. i was texting my sister in law about a certain christmas gift that we (chris and I) received in the mail today from his grandparents in tennessee, and she said i should blog about it. annnnd now that i've uploaded all of these pictures that picture isn't even here. note. we got a country ham. its pretty funny (and i think chris is actually pretty stoked on it). i'll have to do another post about it. and yes...the box smells like ham. poor delivery man. haha

we have, like always, been busy. so instead of going into detail about everything, i'll let the pictures do the talking with a brief rundown.

In the last month or so we

.spent thanksgiving in beautiful and relaxing lake tahoe at a cozy cabin
.put up christmas decorations....our first christmas tree. i love it!!
.made homemade christmas candy (long time family tradition)and looked at christmas lights
.celebrated the husbands birthday at Lucille's, a yummy southern restaurant
.traveled to Las Vegas and St George (my mom and I) for a good friends BEAUTIFULLLL wedding. really. it was perfection.

We have had a crazy whirlwind year (uhhh what happened to 2011???) and have been so fortunate and blessed. Can't believe we are coming up on our one year anniversary!! whoa baby!

Merry Christmas (lets get real, i'll probably not blog again before then....) Enjoy the pictures.





















note...if you are ever in vegas or st george (or parts of utah) you MUST get custard at Nielsen's. its to.die.for.


the beautiful wedding. after the ring ceremony, as they were walking down the aisle, baby bunnies were released. it was so adorable and perfect!

YUM!

Last night i tried a new recipe and after devouring our plates (i mean...eating like civilized adults) Chris looked at me and declared it "one of his top five favorites", or something like that....its that good!

I shared a picture of it via instagram and had a request to put it here on the blog. you'll thank me later!!

HERE is the recipe. I'm a lover of pretty much every tin foil dinner I have ever had. This did NOT dissapoint. If you try it, let me know if you liked it, or added or subtracted anything...

Oh and the best part...it took me about fifteen minutes to prepare (thawed chicken while cooking bacon, then assembled) and took about 35 minutes in the oven.

NOTE. Chris hates ranch. This recipe calls for the use of some ranch, so i just omitted that part, added a little salt and pepper, and it still had a ton of flavor (and truthfully, even though i like ranch, i don't think i'll use it in this recipe). Also, I didn't follow exact measurements when it came to putting stuff in the foil (helllllooooo bacon...yum) and it was still so delicious!!

Life 'n Stuff

We have been BUSY! Is it just me or has this year literally FLOWN by?! I can't belive Thanksgiving is just over a week away and that Christmas will soon be upon us!

Some updates:
-I started a new job at a real estate office. It's a good learning experience and I'm really grateful to have a job with consistent hours and pay (40 hours a week)
-Real estate is a foreign language. its been quite the adjustment trying to figure out all the lingo and abreviations...and i thought our church acronyms were bad! ha!
-i don't love it, but thats ok because i'm learning something new and yada yada :]
-i celebrated turning 24 the beginning of this month


-Chris just started an AIT (administrator in training) program at a nursing home facility with a good family friend of ours (who happens to be a MAJOR big wig in the CA association of nursing homes ie President of the entire thing) SO he is learning the ropes at a really awesome facility from a really smart and connected person.
-he works double duty pretty much every day with no days off (still working at the olive garden serving AND now working the ait job....)he is working really hard and i'm really grateful for that, even though we sometimes don't cross paths until about 10 at night....right in time to go to bed and start the whole process over the next day!!
-he is loving all the football on tv when he gets a chance to sit down and watch it (and i'm a little bit thankful that there is ONLY football to compete with this year instead of football AND basketball :])

Now some pictures....

We celebrated my bithday at a yummy little mexican restaurant in downtown sac. It was delicious and they even brought me a yummy dessert with a sparkler on it and sang to me in spanish. so fun!


I got spoiled with a pretty new white iphone! I was soooo excited. I've had a stupid old phone for a loooong time now and was definitely do for an upgrade (lets just say the old phone would randomly turn off mid text, mid call, mid anything...it was NOT awesome)


We celebrated 11:11 in style. This is chris's work celebration at the nursing home. they stay classy with 11:11 twix bars and sprite shots!


I even captured the moment on my phone and got a cute text from the hubs!


As I was going through my iPod touch to see what I wanted to carry over to my phone, i came across these pictures that we used for our wedding video! us as littles! maybe our future littles will have deliciously chubby cheeks and big puppy dog eyes?! here's to hoping :]


And lastly...happy 10 months of marriage! Seems SOOOO crazy that we are already at 10 months. I still feel like we just got married! and that we just moved back to the mainland from our newlywed tropical island bliss!


also...if you don't have the instagram app yet...get it!

UTAH....

my little sister use to call utah "mytah" funny huh.

anyways. we took a long weekend trip and made our way across the desert of nevada to the great Salt Lake. Chris's parents were in town from Tennessee so we met them "halfway" and ended up at general conference. not too shabby eh. we had a blast, ate WAAAAAAAAAY too much (i don't know if i'll ever recover), attended possibly the best come back BYU game i've ever experienced, and were spiritually uplifted by the wonderful leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Doesn't get much better, eh?


this is how the morning drive started out...i knew i was in for a long weekend filled with lots of food.


isn't is beautiful. SIKE! also...has anyone successfully figured out what that weird statue is in the middle of the salt flats?


my cousin kate and her cute boy tommy. so glad i got to meet up with her awesome family for some YUMMY cafe rio!


isn't my husband cute? i sorta like him.


sat REALLLLLY close at the byu game (like 2 rows up in the end zone...where they scored the winning touchdown in the last 15 seconds of the game. it was AWESOME!)


the beautiful conference center! ps. we totally made it on tv during the sunday morning congregational hymn. we are stars.


walked around temple square. so beautiful


and decided that THIS was the breakfast of champions for the drive home. the cashier was so distracted by all this junk she initially forgot to ring up our two waters. see...we ARE healthy.

all in all, a wonderful weekend spent with wonderful people. here's to a break from reality, and to starting a new job full time on monday...yikes!

BACK!

He's back! after a few days in Tennessee and i'm so happy. This was the first we have been apart since we have been married and i missed him!

He landed in San Francisco, so we couldn't pass up an opportunity to eat some of our favorite grub in one of our favorite cities! fried pickles at hooters (the best fried pickles i've ever tasted. seriously!) and fried chicken at bubba gumps! can you tell i missed him? eatig all that fried food :] love him.

Lately

Life has been busy. with nothing too exciting besides work. sadly.

we did get to spend an exciting four days acting as suedo parents for my three younger siblings (3,4,13) and chris learned first hand that kids are lots and lots of work. its hard to stay frustrated too long though when little jojo starts loving on you (chris learned that too :])

other than that, I had a busy weekend spent crafting to my hearts content (thanks husband) and am so proud of the results.

I've mentioned before that i bought a really cute, full of character, old desk at a garage sale for $20. and it sat. and sat. and sat. on our back patio for a couple of months. I finally decided that i wanted to do something with it and i'm SO glad i did. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the finished result and feel really proud of myself for completing it and loving it.

part of the reason it sat so long was because i was so nervous to touch it, in fear of ruining it. so i researched. look up tons of distressing and refinishing ideas and tutorials on pinterest (i know, lame right) but finally decided to just go with what i felt would be best. and it worked out perfectly! i'm a little bummed that the old smell didn't completely leave, but i'm sure with a little more pinterest love, i'll find a solution (also, if you aren't on pinterest yet, you should be. but maybe you're better off not being :])

So. Here it is. My desk project. what do you think?!





this is my absolute favorite color, and i love the way it looks next to our red couch and how perfectly it fits in with the rest of our decor. and not to mention that we can now have a place to store our computer, instead of on our kitchen counter :]

Chris leaves for a funeral back home in tennessee tomorrow for the weekend and i'm sad to be without him but glad he gets to go spend time with his family.

other than that, we are heading to conference next weekend and i'm SO excited to be getting away from the daily grind, and back to utah. weirdly, i've missed utah and idaho a lot lately. it will be fun to be in a familiar place with a husband this time, and to be with him for his first conference center experience (we got tickets for a few sessions and i'm SO excited!)

will post pictures upon our return :]

(yes this is my husband waiting like a little boy for the cable guy...he heard the beaping of the truck backing up and immediatly went to the window)

Dear McDonalds,
Thank you for having such yummy diet coke. and for making it so cheap. most days (i mean....i don't get it daily...whoops) i can pay for it in straight change. i love that. also. you have the perfect mix of syrup and carbonation...not to mention your straws. ya done good mcdonalds.

Dear Summer,
I love your sunshine, but now i'm ready for colder weather. i want hoodies, and sweatshirts, and most of all, i really just want to wear my really cute new brown boots. HURRY UP and let fall roll in.

Dear $20 desk I bought,
make yourself cute. you have a lot of character and I bought you with the best of intentions to get you finished quickly and well...ya know. i haven't. but i really want to. i just can't decide on how exactly i want you to look, and then you are just left sitting there. i promise i will try not to neglect you anymore (but maybe you could just sand yourself? is that too much to ask? it is. fine.)

Dear Q Tips,
I love you. I don't know when I started needing you after every shower, but i'm really glad you exist because my ears get SOOOO itchy and drive me crazy if I don't get extra water out. thank you times one million.

Dear Running shoes,
why do you already have a hole in the left toe? i haven't even had you six months and you are starting to get holey (and lets be honest, its not like i'm some crazy fitness worker outer). bummer. its ok though because you are the most comfortable "work out" shoes that i've ever owned. you keep my shins from aching after running and for that, i love you.

Dear cable guy,
Thanks for coming over today and installing cable. husband was really excited to have you come over. but our cable still hasn't connected yet because your servers are all backed up. thats not so awesome. but still. its appreciated.

Dear Hawaii,
I miss you. a lot. i took you for granted and i'm sorry. hope to see you again sooner than later.

Confrontation

You know what i hate....confrontation. in any way shape or form. hate it. don't do well with it. get so worked up and nervous and it just stresses me out.

just today (like five minutes ago) I had to deal with a form of confrontation dealing with a nanny job that i was going to take (like i started it today. went up to learn the schedule etc). i had JUST left the house when my mom called me in a panic and said that her daycare (the daycare she has used for the past 3 years) gave notice today. she got a full time job. can't watch my 3 and 4 year old brother and sister anymore. which leaves my mom in a bind. a bind that i can help her with. and want to help her with because well....she's my mom...duh. and they are my family.

so i had to call the said nanny job and tell them that something came up and that i actually can't nanny for them like i had planned. i feel HORRIBLE. not only did i wake the poor woman up from her sleep. i dumped this news on her. she said she needed to gather her thoughts and call me back.

she called back and we talked and i said i could still help out here and there, which i can. but ugh. i just feel awful.

i hate confrontation.

Proud

Please excuse me while I brag....

Last night, while husband was at work, I busted this little painting out.



and i love it. I found the original idea on pinterest (but its really from costplus world market...and its also like $100). luckily...the world of pinterest, and this lovely blogger,completely opened my eyes to the world of DIY and i'm so happy because thats about the only way to decorate a small apartment when you have no money.

obviously the original is really good but i'm loving the way mine turned out. and it helped that it only cost me about $7 worth of paint and sponges (minus the canvas cost, because mom already had that unused from our wedding).

here it is hanging in our kitchen (please excuse how blurry this picture is...annoying. and also how cluttered our counters look)

San Francisco via pictures

and then listen to this song (for the song...not the concept of the video!ha)

there's something about this city...