in a nutshell, august was pretty great. it seemed to be the fullest month of the summer for us.

we explored the natural history museum of utah. maybe this is weird but my favorite part was the view. and checking out the pervious pavement/amazing concrete work.

friends visited from out of town. we may have spent most of our lunch in tears as we talked about what we've all been through this summer. i think this lunch was needed for all of us; i definitely had a perspective shift after talking. 

we toured the parade of homes in salt lake. i convinced mike that we're going to have white kitchen cabinets in our next house. i also convinced him that we need a barn door somewhere in the house.

we took a final summer trip to the cabin. it was a quick weekend trip, but we caught up on season 7 of 24, dined at the grizzly bar, and spent a day in big sky.

i'm pretty glad that this summer is over and more than happy to welcome a new season--yay for football, long drives, cool air and cooking up deliciousness in the kitchen.

10.1.10

print found here. wouldn't you love any of the prints from this etsy shop?

it's finally friday! we're ready for what will surely be the perfect fall weekend. we're going to the big football game tonight (dear aggies, if you only win one game all year, let it be this one!), i've got a new book for note taking while watching conference, my fabric is almost all cut to start working on a christmas present for my mother-in-law, and i've got a list of new recipes to try out, including pumpkin bread and cinammon honey butter, french toast casserole, and this variation of cowboy caviar for snacking.

also making me smile this week: the excitement of my piano student, emma, who told her dad as she left her lesson, "i have to play 3 songs in 3 different positions! it's going to be so hard, dad, but i can do it." i wish they always stayed that excited about learning to play the piano. and coco, who recently discovered grasshoppers. she doesn't want to eat them, but they make great "toys" because she pounces and they hop away, which means she is totally entertained by trying to catch the uncatchable bugs.

happy first of october.

i'm sick of looking at the giveaway post. but i promise ya, i'm going to make something really cute :)

-spent the weekend in AF with bethie and jacki. we spent the whole day scrapbooking and got a lot done. i got to meet jacki's family; it's no wonder she's so sweet. her whole family is sweet, too.

-had to console the husband after the aggies lost by 1. very traumatic. and i'm very ready for march madness to be over.

-got a body wrap. so cool. i liked being all seran-wrapped-up. not sure if i lost inches, but my skin does feel much tighter.

-went to tai pan with my mom and grandma. surprisingly we only spent three hours there. for a girl who hates to shop, that's a pretty painful amount of time to spend in one store, but i was glad to spend some time with them and i found some cute things.

-got really excited to learn how to sew this summer.

-made a super long list of spring chores, including planting a garden (but the yard needs a lot of work before that can happen) and painting our bedroom, living room, and washroom.

-procrastinated homework until approximately 8:55 p.m. on sunday evening. i really need to stop doing that.

-realized i only have a month left to finish my online portfolio. but before you can finish something, you have to start it. so i have a month to start AND finish. i hate online portfolios.

-read in a magazine that 1/3 of your life is spent sleeping. what a waste.

couldn't resist. . .

it's a great time to be a ute fan. i got this email today and had to share these exceptionally motivational posters. and in case you're not yet convinced that utah should in fact be the number 1 team in the nation, read this awesome article by rick reilly.

and saving the best for last. . .GO UTES!

random tuesday thoughts

• so, it was a lot of fun going to the usu game saturday night. jaycee carroll broke the scoring record and the spectrum went wild- he had a standing ovation for 2 minutes and everyone was chanting his name. mike is excited that he can one day tell our kids we were at the game when jaycee broke the record.
• i have the sweetest boss. i leave work at 1:00 pm every other day for school, and yesterday he ran outside before i left to scrape all the snow and ice off my car. he also got mad at the foreman who took my parking spot. how can you not love working with a guy like that?
• the weather channel said it was 5 degrees this morning with a -14 wind chill. i almost lost my ears to frostbite on the way to class. but i saw some dude wearing shorts and cowboy boots and figured if he didn't have frostbite yet, i could make it with both ears attached.
• i met lots of new neighbors on sunday because our ward was reorganized. i didn't even know the people who live across the street (sad, i know) because that was the ward and stake boundary. the things you learn when you meet your neighbors! turns out one of them used to babysit the allen kids whenever my parents were out of town. i loved when she babysat and i thought of her like an older sister. i'm pretty excited that she lives across the street now.

Christmas!

I hate those weekends that go so fast you can't even remember what you did. This was one of those weekends. It was good, it just went too fast. We went to the Aggie game Saturday night, they won so Mike was in a good mood! They play the U Wednesday night and I'm torn. . .I love Aggie basketball but I just can't cheer for them when they play the Utes! It could be a rough night for Mike or I, depending on who wins :)

We also had a family party on Saturday with the Allen side. Here's my cute grandpa,
My dad loves to make Kennedy pretend to lead the music, he does this in church too. He's such a nerd.

And the best part of the Allen Christmas party is the singing, we go all out singing Christmas songs. These pictures are of the boys singing the "Christmas is upon us" song where every group has a part, their part is the elves, "We make the toys for all the girls and boys." And each time they sing it they get higher pitched and faster, or their voices go low and slow. They're quite entertaining!

My dad's part of the singing is to be a tree, "My tree, my tree, is such a sight to see." He's really good at dancing and shaking his hips, pretending he's a tree.


I meant to take a picture of the snow- I love it. It's been so cold and icy but at least we have a lovely layer of white on the ground.

This is the last week of class and next week is finals, I'm so glad because it never feels like Christmas until finals are over. I haven't even started doing my shopping, I've got lots to do in the next few weeks!

Basketballs and Mission Calls

My husband lives for basketball season. He was pretty much in heaven this weekend at the first aggie game of the season. They played SUU and won. We enjoyed more basektball Saturday night as the Jazz killed the Kings. We had great seats, too, thanks grandpa!

The biggest part of the weekend was this guy:

Drew's "farewell" was Sunday. He did such a good job speaking, I think we were all a little blown away to hear him bear his testimony and talk about how excited he is to go and what he did to prepare. Of course I cried through most of the meeting. I can't believe my little brother is old enough to leave on a mission. I'm glad he flies right to England to go to the MTC, I think that will make it a little easier to say goodbye at the airport, not the MTC. Anyway, Scotland is getting a good one. He's going to be great.

Here are some pics of the festivities on Sunday-