David and Karin Driggs

Company Holiday Trip to Vegas

2012-01-15T18:42:00.000-08:00

Instead of doing a normal Christmas party, my work decided to take everyone and their spouses down to Las Vegas for three days in December. Really it was an excuse for my bosses to go to the National Finals Rodeo! We had about 16 couples go down in all. We drove down on a Tuesday. Sadly, David was up all night long Monday night throwing up my left over Pad Thai. He felt horrible. He ended up just sleeping in the back seat while I drove the whole way down. We got in to Vegas around 4:00 that day and got ready for the National Finals Rodeo (NFR). Here we are ready to go in with Natalie and Jordan.

The rodeo was actually really fun. They had the top people from all the states come to compete. The bull riding was the most exciting and the favorite event of the evening.

After the rodeo, we had dinner at the Bellagio Buffet. David felt really tired and still sick so we dropped him off at the hotel first. He missed out on the most amazing buffet I have ever had. I have never been to such a big buffet. They had ever possible dish you could imagine. This was my first plate of desserts. I basically took one of everything!

This was the second day in Vegas. We all were free to do whatever we wanted during the day. We walked around the forum shops with Natalie and Jordan. It was nice and sunny that day.

That night we had dinner at the Grand Lux Cafe in the Palazzo Venetian hotel. After dinner, we saw the Cirque Du Soleil Mystere show at Treasure Island. It was so good! They were amazing! I couldn't believe some of the tricks they did.

Then on Thursday we drove back to Utah just in time for our ward Christmas party that night. It was a really fun trip. I feel so lucky to work with such great people!

November Recap

2012-01-15T18:24:00.000-08:00

Just a quick recap of our November:

We started off the month with a quick weekend get-a-way to Park City/Deer Valley. My boss had signed up for this corporate retreat thing, but he couldn't go for the last day/night. Since the hotel was already paid for, he let me and David go up and use it. We were so grateful! The hotel was amazing! It was up in Deer Valley above Park City. It was called the Deer Valley Montage Resort.

Each room had its own fireplace! You just had to push a button and it turned on! We enjoyed dinner at one of the restaurants in the hotel that night. The restaurant even had a live band there playing John Mayer songs. It was a fun, quick trip.

Then that Saturday afternoon was Jessie Cook's bridal shower in Provo. Jessie lived in the dorms with me and then we were roommates after that before I got married. I was so excited to see her and to be with all the roommates again! It was a fun party with lots of yummy food!

Thanksgiving was pretty low-key this year compared to past years. We kept up the usual Dynes tradition and went to the movies that day. We saw Tower Heist with David's brother, sister, and mom. Then we went to David's grandparents house for dinner with his grandparents, David's family, and David's aunt Tiff and her three children. The cousins were nice enough to make awesome hats for us to all wear during dinner. It was a great Thanksgiving spent with family. We also got to talk with my little brother that day. He had just gotten off his two year mission for the LDS church. It was fun to talk with him and to get excited to see him in December.

Gotta love David's poses - America's Next Top Model quality!

If you are going to San Francisco...

2011-12-04T18:11:00.001-08:00

In October I tagged along with David on his business trip to Sacramento. I had never been to Northern California and really wanted to go to San Francisco. So I came along with him to Sacramento and after working Friday from 7 am to midnight and then Saturday from 10 am to 8 pm, we spent Sunday in San Francisco and then flew home Monday. Also on the trip were two of David's coworkers. It was such a fun trip! San Francisco is absolutely beautiful! The weather was nice and sunny although by the end of the day it was windy and cold. Here we are driving on the Bay Bridge. It took forever to get in to the city. Not only was there a 49ers game going on, but it was Fleet Week. There was a free air show over the bay that day. It was so packed and people were everywhere, but it was really cool to see the air show. I thought the coolest planes were the F-22s. They were super loud and could do fast crazy tricks in the air.

There was absolutely no where to park. Most of the garages were full. We finally found one and they killed us on the rate. They charged $50 to park for the day. I took a peak under their sticker to see what the normal parking rate was and it is normally $15!

This was on the roof of our parking garage. We went up there to watch some of the air show.

That is Alcatraz in the background. We didn't have time to go out and tour it. Some day I want to tour it! I have a strange fascination with Alcatraz - maybe its because I watched the movie The Rock a lot while growing up.

Then we headed over to Fishermans Wharf.

I had the most delicious fish tacos ever and David had the crab chowder.

Next we headed over to Ghirardelli Square.

I ordered the pumpkin caramel hot chocolate! It tasted just as good as it looked!

I really wanted to ride on the trolley cars, but the line was insanely long and it was starting to get cold.

Then we headed back to Sacramento and took the Golden Gate Bridge off the island.

We also stopped at the Sacramento LDS Temple on our way back to the hotel.

It was a short trip, but we had so much fun. I really love traveling to new places with David. We have some more trips coming up and I cannot wait!!

Birthday Catch Up

2011-11-06T07:34:00.001-08:00

I am working to finally get caught up before the holidays come so here goes August and September. We celebrated lots of birthdays during those two months. First up was the birthday of my wonderful friend and former roommate, Courtney. She had a birthday dinner at an Italian restaurant in Salt Lake. It was so much fun to see all my old roommates and to celebrate Courtney's birthday!

Here are all of us King Henry girls!

Next up was my 25th birthday. David and I kept it pretty low-key this year. David actually had to work in Cedar City all week. He came home Thursday evening - the night of my birthday. He was super sweet, though, and had flowers and chocolate delivered to my office. As soon as he got home, we headed out to La Jolla Groves. It is a restaurant in the Riverwoods in Provo. It is super delicious. They use all fresh foods from local markets. The chef there used to be the chef of Chef's Table in Provo (the fanciest restaurant in Provo). I'm sure you all wanted to know that background. Anyway, it was really good.

For my birthday, David got me a new pair of jeans! Dark skinnies as he calls them. I was sooo happy! I had been wanting new jeans, but never even told him that. He even got my size right all on his own!

That weekend we took David's younger brother, Ben, out to celebrate his 25th birthday. We took him to this new place in Provo called the Provo Beach Club. They have an arcade, indoor wave to surf on, high ropes course, bowling, and golf simulator. Ben and David spent the afternoon golfing at Myrtle Beach.

And I just observed from the golf cart.

After golfing, we took Ben to Tucanos. He had never been and really wanted to try it. Plus I needed to use my free birthday meal card there! Needless to say, Ben loved it!

That evening was the BYU versus Utah game. No need to recap what a horrible game that was!

We even had a few other birthdays during September/August - my sister Michalle, our sister-in-law Heather, David's Dad, David's grandmother, our sister-in-law Carlee, just to name a few. September is always fun with all the birthday celebrations!

Final Summer Trip

2011-09-28T21:17:00.001-07:00

At the end of July, we flew to Phoenix for the wedding of my very good friend, Nichole. My boss and his wife were so nice and let us stay in their gorgeous vacation home in Mesa. It was so fun! The morning after we arrived, David and I drove down to see the house David grew up in when he was little. He was born in Mesa and lived in this house until he was eight and moved to California. It was so fun to see the house he lived in as a baby!

And this was David's first school.

Then we headed back to the house for some pool time! The weather was actually perfect. I was afraid it was going to be horribly hot but it was not bad at all. It was a little overcast so the temperatures were only in the high 90's. Rather than the 120's!

Sweet dive!

We spent a lot of time just lounging and reading at the pool. Work has been so crazy for us, so it was nice to have a long weekend to rest and relax.

For lunch on Saturday we went to Tia Rosas. I ate here when I came to Arizona for my company retreat in 2010. It was so good!

Saturday night was Nichole's wedding in Tucson. I met Nichole our freshmen year of high school. She and I were both in choir and became really good friends. She has always been there for me and was actually in Utah with me when David and I started dating! If she had not come and visited me in Utah, David may have never invited us over to watch Nacho Libre at his apartment! She has always been such a good friend to me. I was so glad I was able to come to Arizona to be at her wedding! Noelle was a bridesmaid so I got to see her, too!! It was so fun to see her again and I cannot wait for her wedding - Oct 2012!!

Me, Noelle, Stephanie, and Michelle - more high school friends who happen to also be Nichole's cousins!

The first dance!!

Nichole was so beautiful! Her dress was gorgeous and she looked so happy! It was such a fun trip. David and I were so glad we got to see Nichole and be a part of her special day!

Texas!

2011-09-28T20:44:00.000-07:00

In the middle of July, we headed to Texas for one of my best friend's weddings. We flew down late Tuesday night to stay at my parents house. We enjoyed a break from work to rest, relax, and spend time with friends. The first day I went to lunch with my close friends from high school. The next day, my sister, Rachel, her four children, and I took David on a little tour of downtown Richmond. Exciting, I know. It was actually pretty neat. Here is David tasting a delicious Texas grape.

We got to tour this beautiful home that was built in the early 1900s. I think. (The trip was over two months ago so I have forgotten my Richmond history facts) I do remember, though, that the guy who built the house wanted it to look like the white house. Job accomplished.

David riding in the back with the Orme children!

Later in the afternoon, my sister, Lori, and her two girls came down from the Austin area to visit us. It was so great to see her, Avery, and Addie! That night David and I got dressed up and headed to Houston for a mini photo shoot by my amazing photographer friend, Carlea Wilson of Carlea J Photography. She is seriously amazing and the pictures turned out great! Then she and her husband, Dustin, took David and I to the most delicious Mexican restaurant in Houston called El Tiempo. I seriously still dream about that food. It was amazing.

Three of the Dynes sisters!!

On Friday, David's best friend, Danny, and Danny's new wife, Megan, came down from College Station to visit us and stay the night at my parents' house. It also happened to be Danny's birthday on Saturday so we decided to go down to Galveston. David had never been and I really wanted him to see it in person. It was a short trip since the wedding was that evening, but we had fun. Here we are on the ferry in Galveston. Wow was it humid!

I will admit, the beaches in Texas are not as pretty as the California beaches, but I love that warm water! Way better than the FREEZING water in California.

Megan got Danny some sweet fishing gear for his birthday. We were so glad we got to see them and spend some time with Danny on his birthday!

Thanks again Danny and Megan!!

On to the wedding! I have known Catherine since we were in 6th grade. I still remember meeting on the first day of school! She has been such a great friend to me all these years. Even though we live in different states and have lived in different states for the last six years, I know I can always call her at any moment and things are just like old times. She was a gorgeous bride! She was so happy and just glowing. I was so happy to be a part of her special day. This is the bride and groom's first dance at the reception

So beautiful! For the reception she added the headband and belt on her dress. I thought it was so cute!!

More of my wonderful friends from high school! Kendra, Noelle, George, and Allison!

My amazing friends! I never would have made it growing up without these girls. It was so much fun to dance and party the night away with these ladies!

And of course the trip would not have been fun without David. My very best friend! Thank you for the trip to Texas!

California Adventure

2011-08-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

In the middle of June, we headed to California for David's good friend, Danny's wedding in Newport Beach. Of course we couldn't go to California without making time for two things: 1. Stopping to see Matt and Michalle and 2. Going to Disneyland. We stayed with Matt and Michalle for the first two nights. They were so nice to let us stay. They took us to Chipotle the first night. It was yummy! I had never been before. The next day, David and I went to downtown LA to eat at LA Market (Hell's Kitchen anyone?). Then we went to the Getty Museum. It was beautiful. We had so much fun. Allie is the cutest little girl! She is so funny and smart! We loved playing with her and getting to see her more. Then we spent a day at Disneyland. We decided to go to California Adventure since neither David or I had been there. It was so fun. The basic Disneyland side is still the best but we had so much fun. The World of Color show they do at the end of the night at California Adventure is amazing! It put the Bellagio water show to shame. We loved it! Then we headed down to stay in Newport. We spent a day at the beach with Danny and his brothers and friends. Then the wedding was on Saturday. Megan and Danny were so happy and Megan looked absolutely beautiful. I loved her dress! The reception was on a yacht in Newport Harbor. How cool is that? We had so much fun on this trip. It was sad to head back to Utah on Sunday. Here are some of the pictures from the trip:

Company Summer Retreat

2011-08-28T14:19:00.000-07:00

Just two weeks after our trip to Colorado, we headed to Vernal, Utah with my company and everyone's families to enjoy two days at my boss's cabin. First we stopped off at the Utah State Bingham Entrepreneurship and Energy Research Center to see how things were doing. My boss and his wife donated the money for this building so it was named after them. It is a really cool modern building. Here are all the Blue Diamond employees:

Then we left Vernal and drove up Diamond Mountain for about an hour and a half to Marc and Debbie's cabin. It is literally in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing else up there except for cows and deer. It was really cool to be in the remote forests on top of the mountain.

David and I were able to get some more four wheeling in. At my grandma's cabin in Colorado, you have to stay on certain roads because she lives in a state park and the park rangers yell at you if you go on park roads. Here you could go wherever you wanted. It was really cool to just drive around through the mountain.

We ate a ton of really good food at the cabin and played games. We played a game with all the couples called Ladder Ball. It was really fun but we were not that good at it. My coworker, Scotty, and his wife, Karin, (Yes, she is the one other person in the world who spells her name like me!) killed everyone. No one could beat them. The highlight of the trip for me was the zip line. It was hilarious. My coworker, Scott, and I told David to test it out first to see if it could hold up. David climbed up the ladder, sat on the bar, and took off. In the far off distance, you can see a white thing. That is two really old, pretty thin mattresses propped up against a tree. We did not think to check the end of the zip line before we sent David down. He just went flying down and smashed in to the mattresses. He got the wind knocked out of him but was laughing. It was pretty funny. After that, we put David at the end of the line to slow people down as they came down the zip line. We had a few children get hurt, but over all it was actually really fun! Pretty nice for a self made zip line!

Not gonna lie, it was really scary at the start. That ladder was really tall!

All in all, it was a fun trip. I am so grateful that I get to work with such fun, kind people. David and I really enjoyed our weekend in Vernal.

Summer Vacation Begins

2011-08-28T13:51:00.000-07:00

So I am way way way behind on blogging. I am going to try my very best to catch up so these posts may not be too detailed. Way back in May, we took David's sister and brother with us to my grandma and grandpa's cabin in Southern Colorado over Memorial Day weekend. My sister, Angela, her husband, Scott, and their baby, Bradley, came down to. We had a wonderful weekend. David's siblings had never been to Colorado so we took them to Mesa Verde and explored the small town of Mancos. They had also never driven a four wheeler so we drove around the mountain a bit and then enjoyed a nice evening relaxing in the hot tub. We also went to church with my grandparents and enjoyed a Sunday stroll down to the lake. We ended our evenings with a nice game of Mexican Train. Oh and I'll pretend this was a perfect trip and not even mention the water pump breaking on Sunday night and our lack of water for the final 12 hours of the trip. Of course that happened after I repeatedly told David's little sister that I have never ever had a problem with the limited water supply at the cabin. Oops! Besides that, we loved the trip. We cannot thank my grandparents enough for opening their beautiful home to us. I have been to this cabin and mountain my entire life and I am always amazed at the beauty of it. Here are some completely out of order pictures for you to enjoy. (I would love the day Blogspot makes loading pictures easier - anyone else agree on that?)

The beautiful cabin that my grandpa built:

Who doesn't love having a hot tub in their basement? Plus when the water pump broke, we had a nice supply of water to flush the toilets with. Is that TMI? Did you know you could flush a toilet by just dumping a bucket of water in to the bowl?

Yes we drove around like this except I then squeezed in between Kelli and David. We had a blast!

Mancos only has three restaurants. 1. Absolute Bakery and Cafe - I am dying to eat here. It is this super cute, quaint little bakery and the past two times I have come to Mancos it has closed minutes before I arrived. Some day I will eat there. 2. Hamburger Haven - a ghetto hamburger stand that belongs at a fair. 3. Millwood Junction - family restaurant/motorcycle gang bar. Of course since my first option was closed we chose the next best one. And sadly, this is my second time eating here. The highlight of the day was when Kelli asked the waitress what was in the macaroni salad and the waitress responded, "I don't know. It's not that good, though. I wouldn't order it." Great sales skills.

Waiting in line at Mesa Verde:

These are backwards in order but this is the end of the Balcony House tour. They call it the adventurous tour. You get to climb up ladders and crawl through tunnels. It was really fun!

This was our rather enthusiastic tour guide. She talked with her hands a LOT.

To end, here is a nice embarrassing picture of David striking a pose. Thank you for the fun trip everyone!

May Birthdays and Graduation

2011-07-20T18:19:00.000-07:00

May was a fun, busy month full of birthday, holidays, graduation, and a mini vacation. First up was David's mom's 50th birthday. We invited David's family over for dinner that weekend to celebrate. We decided to make mini pizzas and let everyone create their own. It was very yummy! We had sausage, pepperoni, olives, green peppers, pineapple, canadian bacon, blue cheese, mozzarella, cheddar, and parmesan. Here is David's mom opening her gag gift from us. Since she is now over the hill, we gave her a giant Book of Mormon along with a magnifying glass to help. For real, we gave her a gift card to Lowe's and the promise to spend a weekend helping her with a job of her choice around her house - painting a room, weeding the garden, whatever she wants.

On May 26, we celebrated David's sister's high school graduation and David's 27th birthday! Below are me, Kelli, and Cami (David's cousin) after the graduation. Kelli will start at BYU in the fall!

After graduation, we all went to Chili's to celebrate!

After dinner, we went to David's parent's house to celebrate David's birthday. (It was a late night!) First, though, we gave Kelli a small graduation gift. Her first bottle of perfume! (Marc Jacobs Daisy) Doesn't David look so cute in this picture!

On to the birthday cake! I knew we would all be stuffed from dinner, so I purchased a mini cake from a place in Orem called The Chocolate: Dessert Cafe.

I didn't realize David was making that face when I selected this picture. Sorry David! Here he is opening all his presents. His parents and I decided to do a sports themed birthday for David this year. He got a basketball, tennis balls, tennis racquet, soccer ball, and some other stuff I can't remember.

Then came his present from me! He got a golf glove and three private lessons with a golf professional!! David decided a year ago that he wanted to learn to golf. He goes to the driving range but has never had any formal training and does not know anything about proper technique so I thought it was the perfect gift. In case you can't tell, I was really really excited to give him his gift!

To end the night, David's family wrote a song and sang it to David. It was really cute! It was to the tune of that song "There She Goes". (But it was "There He Goes) David's mom put it together because for Mother's Day, David wrote and performed with Ben a song for her. It was written to the tune of a song that Mike Meyers sings in the movie So I Married an Ax Murderer. All in all it was a fun night! Happy Birthday David - I love you!

How to Not Grocery Shop for a Month

2011-06-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

Today is June 25th. I have not grocery shopped in a month. Well, that is a lie. I have bought three items: bread, milk, and cereal. Other than that, I seriously have not grocery shopped. Would you like to know the secret? Here is what it takes:

1. Go on as many trips out of town as possible.

2. Eat at other people's houses as much as possible.

3. Make giant freezer meals.

4. Eat every last thing in your pantry.

Seriously, though, I am a bit surprised that I managed to go this long! In the last month, David and I have been to Colorado, Vernal, and California. At the beginning of May, my ward had a Freezer Meal Frenzy party. I signed up to make three of the freezer meals. During the last month, David and I ate two of them - creamy chicken taquitoes and chicken broccoli bake. They seriously each lasted us three nights of dinners. I still have my third one to eat so my grocery shopping strike will continue even longer. We have literally eaten almost every last thing in our pantry/refrigerator. There are a few ramen noodle packages left, though. I am hoping to make it to July. We shall see.

In other news, get ready for lots of blog updates about our fun adventures this summer! I intend to catch up this weekend!

Easter Weekend Pt 3

2011-06-24T15:57:00.000-07:00

On our way home from Ogden over Easter Weekend, we decided to stop by the Hill Air Force Aerospace Museum. David was so excited! Here are a few pictures from the museum. It was really cool to see all the planes. The ones outside were GIGANTIC! It was really cool.

This is David's favorite aircraft.

This helicopter was really cool. The man who took the picture cut off the top of the helicopter, which was sad, because that was the coolest part. It had two separate rotating blade things. (Ignore my technical terms)

This was David's favorite World War II era aircraft.

If you are ever near Ogden/North Salt Lake, you should stop by! (Plus it is free)

Easter Weekend Pt 2

2011-05-03T21:29:00.000-07:00

After our visit to Antelope Island (why is it even called that if it mainly has buffalo), we headed up to Ogden for the fun part of our trip. I had bought off of Groupon a coupon to go rock climbing, indoor sky-diving, and indoor surfing. I had never been to Ogden before, but it was actually a cute little town. They have redone "downtown" Ogden. They built a bunch of new restaurants, a new movie theater, and then the place we went to that had the skydiving, rock climbing, surfing, a Gold's Gym, a bowling alley, and Costa Vida.

Our first stop was iFly to go indoor skydiving! I am waaaayy too chicken to ever skydive for real, but I had no problem with this. After a short lesson on the proper position to take in the skydiving wind tunnel, we suited up and got ready to go in.

We couldn't take our camera with us to the waiting chamber, but we did get a DVD of our flights. Below is a picture of a girl trying out some cool moves. We didn't get to do anything like that since it was our first time.

It was really fun! I loved it! The wind is crazy in there! You have to wear goggles and ear plugs and a helmet. You can't hear anything while you are in there so the instructor has to communicate with you through different hand movements. The best part was when the instructor would spin you around and the two of you would fly up high while spinning. At the end our instructor, who was super nice, cranked the wind power up really high and do a bunch of cool moves. It was really fun - I definitely recommend trying it if you are too chicken like me to do the real thing!

After skydiving we were going to go rock climbing, but it was packed so we decided to skip it. We have been indoor rock climbing at The Quarry in Provo, so we knew we weren't missing anything. After a quick dinner at Costa Vida, we headed over to the indoor surfing place - Flowrider. If you are a girl you either have to wear a rash guard or shirt over your swimsuit so that you do not expose your self when you fall over and are swept up by the way. I was really nervous to do this. I have never snowboarded, wakeboarded, or even skateboarded!

I decided to start out by just trying the body board. That was a lot of fun! David was way better than me. If you watch my video below, you will see that I wasn't very good, but I still had fun! We had an hour to surf/body board so about half way through our hour, one of the workers insisted that I try the surfing. He had done it a couple of times and of course made it look super easy. They let me use a rope to help stable myself, but even that did not help. The second time I tried it, I totally face planted and smacked my forehead on the ground and was washed up and over the wave. My neck killed for the next few days! Very painful! After that I stuck to the body board. David tried the surfing a few times and started to get the hang of it a little. He loved the wave - that was his favorite part of the day!

After that we were exhausted and it was pretty late, so we went to the hotel to go to bed. Stay tuned for Easter Weekend Pt 3 - Hill Aerospace Museum.

P.S. So I tried to upload our body boarding videos but after an hour and a half of waiting and they were still loading, I gave up. If you ever come visit me in person, you can view the video of me embarrassing myself. Here is a picture, though, of what the place looked like.

Easter Weekend Pt 1

2011-05-03T20:56:00.000-07:00

David and I decided to plan a little "stay-cation" as he kept calling it for Easter weekend. I had that Friday off for Good Friday and David decided to take the day off of work. Way back in February I had bought a coupon to do some fun things up in Ogden, so we decided to make a little trip out of it and spend Friday night in Ogden. On our way up to Ogden, we decided to stop at Antelope Island, north of Salt Lake City. I'm just going to say it now - it was a bit lame. I guess if you want to actually see more than 3 of the 700 buffalo on the island, you should go in October when the round up all the buffalo.

Despite being sunny, it was very chilly. Online it said there was a restaurant on the island, so we had decided to eat lunch there. The "restaurant" was just a small burger place with no heater. It was cold! David did order the buffalo burger and said it was good. I had chicken as usual.

Way in the distance you can see the 3 buffalo that we saw. Exciting. I know.

Utah does have beaches! They are on Antelope Island!

And this was when David decided to drive along the buffalo corral hoping to see some more buffalo, but no such luck. All in all it was pretty lame to go to Antelope Island, but now we can say we have been. Check that off our Utah Sight Seeing list. Coming up part 2 of our trip - the fun part!!

Update on Issues

2011-04-18T21:40:00.001-07:00

I thought I should give a quick update on all my doctor visits as of lately. After my migraine two Wednesdays ago, a still had a slight headache and blurry eyes on Thursday and a bit on Friday. I decided to stop in and see an instacare doctor that Friday. He seemed very concerned that I got the migraines so suddenly and had never had them before. Then he got even more worried when I told him about my other issue. He said that if I got another bad migraine, that I should call my regular doctor and should probably get an MRI to make sure I didn't have a tumor or anything on my pituitary gland.

That Saturday night, I got another bad migraine. I was trying to plan my Sunday School lesson and could not even read the manual. David had to read it out loud to me. It was very frustrating. Monday morning I decided I should call my regular doctor. They scheduled me for an appointment immediately the next morning. I went in to her on Tuesday and told her everything. She decided that I should have my blood taken again and that I should get an MRI. The hospital in American Fork called me and scheduled me for my MRI that Thursday.

I was a bit nervous because online it said that sometimes they have to inject you with this contrast stuff. I HATE shots. Luckily, half way through the MRI, the technician said my scans were coming in clear enough that I would not have to have the injection. Yay! What a relief! The MRI wasn't bad. It was kind of like lying in a tanning bed, except it made lots of loud bangs and clanks and weird sounds. I had to lie in there for about 35 minutes while they took different scans.

On Friday morning my doctor called and said the scans from the MRI came out perfectly. Not a single thing wrong. I was happy and frustrated. I mean that is always great news to hear that your brain is in perfect condition, but I wish they could figure out what is wrong with me! The doctor gave me some prescription strength migraine medicine and told me I should still see a urologist.

Hopefully this can all get figured out at some point. And sorry to disappoint you all, but I am not pregnant. I have had two blood tests in the last two weeks, actually took 2 pregnant tests to double check, and you can't get an MRI if you are pregnant so that is definitely not the diagnosis for my problems. Life would be much simpler if that were the answer. My next doctor visit isn't for another week and a half so until then....

Clean Garage

2011-04-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

This last Saturday was such a great day! It was about 65 degrees and a perfect day to finally clean out the garage. The garage had been driving me nuts for a while. David decided back in January to clean his work shoes in the garage so there was dirt everywhere. Let me tell you how much I appreciated that one. Also, when they built our house, they left a bunch of extra floor trim and base boards in the garage. When we put up all our blinds, we added to the pile and threw all the extra slats in the garage.

Since it was such a nice day to be outside, we cleaned out the garage. We threw away all the base boards and blinds. I swept out all the dirt. And David installed these sweet bike hooks and that rack to hold our brooms/shovels. It is so nerdy that a clean garage makes me happy, but I love how it turned out! So nice and organized!

This Never Happens

2011-04-18T21:30:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has ever been to my house knows that my fridge is NEVER full. Neither is my pantry. For once in my life, David and I actually had a full fridge! We had left over lasagna, left over lemon basil pasta, and left over homemade pizza, as well as a ton of other yummy things. I just thought I should document this rare occasion. I'm pretty sure, even now as I type this, my fridge has gone back to being empty.

Getting Old

2011-04-06T21:41:00.000-07:00

So I must be getting old or something. I am having major issues. First, I go potty ALL the time. The second I am done drinking a glass of water I have to run to the bathroom. And then at least 2 more times after that! I thought those bladder control commercials showed old people! Let's just say it is a HUGE annoyance - the bathroom at work is all the way out of the office suite and in the main hall of the building.

Second, I had my first migraine ever today. I never knew what people were talking about when they said they got migraines. I always thought - what's the big deal? It's just a bad headache, right? So wrong. Worst. Headache. Ever. I woke up this morning with a pounding headache. Sometimes that happens because my neck is tight or I slept funny. So I laid on the couch for half an hour hoping it would go away before work. No such luck, so I got up anyway to get ready. As I was putting my makeup on, my entire left arm went numb. I couldn't even hold my mascara in my hand. Next thing I know, my eyesight is blurry. I call David on the phone to freak out - I had no idea what was going on!! I had a really hard time talking to him and forming the words. With David on the phone, I went to the computer to google my symptoms. I could hardly read the screen - it was the weirdest thing ever. David finally told me to look up the symptoms of a migraine. I did, and I fit every single one. I went back to bed for about three hours after taking several Tylenol Extra Strength. The pounding stopped if I laid perfectly still. Every time I rolled over, my head started pounding again.

Needless to say, it was the most horrible experience ever! Although two of my coworkers were in the area and brought me a coke to help with the headache. So nice of them! And then David came home and took care of me. :) Here's to hoping for a MUCH better tomorrow!

Wonderful Weekends

2011-03-27T15:56:00.000-07:00

I live for the weekends. Don't get me wrong - I love my job, but I LOVE weekends. I love sleeping in. I love when David cooks Saturday breakfast. I love having no real plans, but time to lounge around and do what I please. This weekend was one of those. We did not have any official plans at the beginning but ended up enjoying two fun date nights! For Friday, the owner of my company and his wife let us know that they had tickets to see Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, and Larry the Cable Guy at the Energy Solutions Arena. Neither David or I had ever been to a real comedy show so we thought we would go. David got off work a bit late, so we rushed to Salt Lake and stopped at Zupas for aquick dinner. Of course right when we sat down, I knocked my cup of water (thankfully not soda!) over and spilled it all over my lap/legs. Great. Thank goodness it is "spring" so my wet, cold legs did not completely freeze over. We then rushed over to the ESA for the show. We met up with my boss, his wife, and a few coworkers/spouses/friends. I was a bit nervous going in on what to expect. I actually don't really like Larry the Cable Guy and hate when people say "Git 'Er Done".

Random tangent, when I worked at BYU, someone in the administration building had the saying "Git 'Er Done" in their office in block letters. I always wondered if they knew what that really meant.

Thankfully, LTCG (Larry the Cable Guy) only said it once at the very end. Bill Engvall opened the show and he was funny. Then Jeff Foxworthy came on stage. I wish he had gone last. He was hilarious! David and I were cracking up the whole time! LTCG finished the show. I laughed some during his part, but I must say - I don't think I have ever heard someone talk about poop as much as him! Definitely his favorite subject. For the encore, all of them came back on stage and answered some funny questions people in the audience had written on cards as they walked in. Overall it was a fun night. It is always fun to go and do new things. And I am so grateful to my boss and his wife for thinking of us and inviting us!

On Saturday we did not have any plans. I slept in. (I don't know what is wrong with David but he NEVER sleeps in past 7am) David made me breakfast tacos - as close to Papa Mex as he possible could - his idea! So cute! (I am going to Texas in July and am already CRAVING Papa Mex). We are going to put in sprinklers/sod in the next few weeks so we worked on designing that. Then we went to DI to browse for any super finds for the house but all we (David) found was ESPN Sports Scene It for $2. Can't say no to that.

David decided it would be fun to do another date night so we went and saw Limitless at the movie theater using a groupon I had bought a while ago. I didn't really know what to expect and actually wasn't that interested in seeing it but really no movies at the theater sounded that great. I actually enjoyed it! It had a few cringe worthy parts (anyone who has seen it will know the blood scene I am talking about! ew!). But we both liked it. It was a cool idea. If only I could get my hands on some NZT pills....

Then we headed to Chili's since I had a coupon for free chips and queso. I love Chili's. If you have never had their mashed potatoes, you must go. I don't even like gravy, but I LOVE these mashed potatoes and the gravy.

We ended the night with a few levels of Super Mario (yes, we are dorks) back at home. And then Saturday ends and all you have left is Sunday until the next work week starts and you are counting down the days until the weekend again. Bummer. But it was a fun weekend! We figure we better start cramming in all the date nights we can before we can't do them so easily!! (No, I am not pregnant but at some point in my life I will have a child and at that point I don't think I will get to sleep in or sit around doing nothing on the weekends or have spontaneous date nights!)

Hope you all had a lovely weekend, too!

Golfing Pro in the Making

2011-03-23T20:28:00.001-07:00

Spring is on its way here in Utah. David has been dying to go to a driving range and get back to practicing golf so he and his brother, Ben, went out a few Saturdays ago when the weather was somewhat warm. I tagged along to enjoy reading a book outside and snapped a few shots. David even made me film a few of his swings so that he could analyze them. David had never golfed before in his entire life but suddenly decided he really wanted to learn about a year ago. I don't know much about golf, but I think he looks great!

Week with the Himes

2011-03-23T20:05:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of March, Angela and Bradley came to stay with us for a few days while Scott went out of town with one of his professors and some classmates. It was so much fun to have them around and to get to play with Bradley every night when I came home from work. Have I mentioned before how much I love having house guests? I love it! Angela and I planned out yummy meals for each night and even were able to do a little crafting. I am obsessed with Taylor Swift's CD, Speak Now, so I gave Angela and Bradley a little sampling of my favorite songs on the CD. Bradley was so cute dancing around and trying to walk to the music. He loves when the camera comes out and knows to look right at it.

Here is Bradley dancing with his mama!

Bradley can do tricks! He does this funny thing where he just holds the spoon in his mouth. He doesn't actually eat food with this spoon because it is too big, but he can stick it in his mouth and hold it there with no hands.

My other favorite thing Bradley does is this noise with his mouth. Bradley usually does not make a lot of noises or sounds when he is around me, but if you put your finger sideways up to his mouth and move it back and forth, he starts going "aaaahhhh". Don't know if that makes sense, but it is the cutest thing ever!

Thank you for staying with us Bradley and Angela! We had so much fun!

2011 So Far

2011-03-04T21:30:00.000-08:00

I am just terrible about blogging lately! The last real thing I blogged about was New Year's Eve. So to make it easier on me and to get caught up, here is a list of what the Driggs's (??) have been up to for the first two months of 2011:

- Lots and lots of Super Mario - yes David and I are big dorks but it is SO fun!

- Babysat twice - once for each of our two cute nephews here in Utah

- Helped David's brother, wife, and son pack up and move to Green Bay, Wisconsin

- Said goodbye to David's sister Kathryn for the next 18 months while she serves her mission in Spokane, Washington

- Attended two baptisms for two of our cousins - one on my side and one on David's side

- Was super busy with work the last two months

- Had 2 dinners with several fun, cute couples in our ward

- I now teach Sunday School to the 16-18 year olds. It is very intimidating! I still feel like I am/look like an 18 year old!

- FINALLY took down our Christmas lights in February

- Ate dinner at Bambara in Salt Lake for Valentine's Day. David and I love trying new restaurants so he decided to pick one and surprise me. He didn't know it when he made the reservation, but Bambara is in the hotel we stayed at for our wedding night - Hotel Monaco. It made it extra special. David and I highly recommend their bison dish. It has sweet potatoes, blue cheese, spinach, and a very delicious pomegranate juice and bison. Sounds weird but was honestly one of the best dishes we have had in a long time!

- Had a get-together with the King Henry 110 roommates! (Minus Natalie who lives in Washington :( )

- Went to the cutest baby shower for my old roommate Allison!

- Had a get-together with old friends from my hometown Richmond ward - so fun to see them all!

- Found out David's little sister got in to BYU!! So happy for her!

- Enjoyed a wonderful holiday from work on President's Day and got to enjoy lunch with two of my roommates - Kate and Natalie (visiting from Washington!)

- Got to hang out with our favorite person from Antioch, California - Danny's little brother Matt!

- And that is about all I can remember - is it just me or do other people completely forget what it is they have been doing for the past few months? I always have a hard time remembering what it is I have been up to. Since this counts as my journal since I cannot get myself to write in a journal, I will try to be better and blog about things when they happen so that I don't forget. And if you are still reading this, sorry to bore you! I'll be better next time!

So Long, Farewell

2011-03-01T18:05:00.000-08:00

Well it was a good 6 years. Minus the time you died in the underground parking lot and minus the time I smashed you into a cement column. And minus last summer when you had no A/C. You will be missed Pontiac.

To replace you, David and I bought a brand new Honda CR-V last night! I love love love it! It is so much fun to drive! (sorry pontiac) We are super excited! Plus our favorite car salesman at Ken Garff gave us a really great deal! Couldn't be more grateful! Yay!

Fellow Eye Liner Lovers Needed

2011-02-15T07:10:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post - I need some help! My sister-in-law bought me this really great black eyeliner from Tarte Cosmetics for my last birthday and I have loved it! It just ran out so I need some more. The eye liner was a gel-pencil eye liner and was great. It stayed on all day and never smudged.

I am debating buying more of that online or trying a different kind. If any of you out there have a really great eye liner that stays on all day and does not smudge, please let me know! I am willing to try anything!

Thanks!

New Year's Eve

2011-02-10T20:54:00.000-08:00

So I am a little behind on my blogging. Work has been crazy for the past month. We had our big annual financial review/projection meeting today. The meeting went very well and I am so happy to feel less stressed. Now perhaps I will have motivation to do things when I get home from work instead of plopping on the couch and sitting there for 4 hours until I go to bed.

This New Year's was a bit eventful for David and I, so I wanted to make sure I blogged about. (you know, since I don't keep journals or anything. But the blog counts, right?) Well David had been unusually tired all during Christmas break. Then the Monday before NYE, some strange bumps formed on his forehead. We had no idea what they were. I figured maybe a bug bit him or something. He decided he was too busy to take off from work, so I got him to agree to go to a clinic on Friday (NYE) morning. David woke up Friday morning feeling terrible. He had a cough, a sore throat, and kept saying how cold he was. We went to the doctor and found out David had shingles!

Of course, neither of us knew what that was. We quickly learned that it is from the same virus as chicken pox, except you only break out in one spot on your body - David's was his forehead. We also found that it is most common in people over the age of 60. Nice. The doctor also said David had a fever of 104 degrees. Me being the blonde I can be at times, thought nothing of that. Honestly, neither David or I have ever gotten very sick since we have known each other so I don't really know what to do when people are sick. (Of course, except the time we both got the Provo Pool Epidemic but that is a whole different story.)

We headed to Target to fill his prescriptions and then went to have breakfast at Paradise Bakery. The whole time David kept saying how cold he was. I was sweating on the car ride home with the heater cranked up so high. David took his first prescription medicine and 20 minutes later threw up his entire breakfast. In the meantime, I fell asleep on the couch - sorry David!

After a quick cat nap, I went in to the bathroom to find David sitting next to the toilet, shivering. He had on long johns, two pairs of socks, sweatpants, a long sleeve shirt, a hoodie, and a blanket wrapped around him and was puking. I touched his neck and it was burning hot! Now I started to freak out. Thankfully I thought to call my sister Rachel for advice. She told me that I had to break his fever. She said his body was overreacting to being so hot that that was why he was shivering. I tried giving him 4 ibuprofen to break the fever, but he immediately threw that up. Rachel said to also have him take a lukewarm bath. I made him sit in the bath tub for an hour and then take a nap. And finally he stopped shivering! Yay! The fever broke and he stopped throwing up.

Also, while all this went on, I had about 6 phone conversations with David's mom. We were supposed to be hosting NYE at our house that night. I insisted everything would be fine and we should proceed on. To be honest, I just love hosting things! Sorry again David - sick husband or not. My sister and her husband and baby came over. David's parents and all his siblings came over. David's aunt and uncle and two of their children even stopped by for a little bit. We had a fun night of eating yummy snacks, playing Just Dance, and watched the ball drop on TV in New York.

David's mom, sisters, and brother, wife and baby all slept over that night. David's mom made a big delicious breakfast in the morning. The temperature that day was FREEZING! I think the high was like 12 degrees. We all stayed in and sat around watching TV and movies and doing this a lot:

David's mom was REALLY good. She killed us all!

I don't really like NYE. I would have to say it is my least favorite holiday, but I actually had a fun time just hanging out with all the family. And thankfully David felt well enough to stay up all the way until 11:30. He felt 100% better on Saturday. The only problem now is that he still had indentions on his forehead. I'm talking even right now. Today. February 10th. It looks like someone took a stick and poked his forehead a couple of times.

Here is a picture I just had to throw in. #1 Bradley is such a cute nephew (and is wearing his Christmas present from his Uncle David and Aunt Karin) and #2 if you zoom in you can see David's red indentations.

And one last one so that you can see the wonderful thing that is iPhoto. No more red spots! Guess I'll be doing this for a while until they go away! haha

Hope you all are having a great 2011 so far! Sorry that was a bit of a novel!

The Holidays

2011-01-11T19:07:00.000-08:00

I always get super excited for Christmas to come, and then I always feel like it goes by super fast. This year was the same as always. David and I had a very busy schedule during the holidays but were able to see lots of family. We are so grateful for both our families and were so glad to get to spend time with both of them.

Matt and Michalle and Allie were sooooo nice to make the snowy drive out to Utah for Christmas. They stayed with us at our house for 5 days. We hadn't seen Allie since April. Back then she could hardly crawl and now she was the cute, funny little girl who would not stop pacing around the house. She was constantly go, go, go, but it was really fun to have her around!

This was Matt and Michalle's first night in Utah. Mom and Dad watched Allie and Bradley while we all went to eat at Wingers. It was freezing cold and Matt was wearing shorts.

The next morning we decided to see if Allie would enjoy the snow or not. Definitely not. We stuck her out in the snow and she immediately ran for the one patch of normal dirt. We lasted outside for approximately 3 minutes.

I just really like this picture and wanted to post it. I love how Bradley is smiling at the camera!

Mom and "The Little Girls"

This is the face Allie gives 99% of the time. I thought it was hilarious. She constantly had this look on her face. We never could get her to smile for the camera. I also love her thug hoodie.

Allie LOVED playing the piano. Sorry Angela to let a one year old bang on your piano, but she loved it. She also loved that bottle.

Thursday night before Christmas we hosted a big dinner at our house for my parents, Matt, Michalle, Angela, Scott, my mom's parents, and my aunt Marie and Uncle Dean. David's company gave him a Christmas ham as a gift so we decided to cook that for the dinner. Angela also helped me make the world's largest batch of Pioneer Woman's mashed potatoes. I kid you not. Everyone else provided yummy side dishes, too. It was a lot of fun to have everyone over and was the first big dinner we have had at the house. We also did our Dynes tradition of passing the gifts while reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas", but I just wrapped up different candy bars instead of gifts.

After the dinner, Matt, David, and I left to go to the BYU basketball game. David's uncle bought tickets for any Driggs's in the area who wanted to go. It was fun to get out and go to a game. Matt enjoyed getting to see BYU play live since he and Michalle haven't lived in Utah for a while now. Here is a picture of me, Michalle, and Grandma and Grandpa Johnson before I left.

We spent Christmas Eve with David's family this year. We went to his parents house in Provo and spent the night with all his siblings. David's family had a tradition of traveling all through the house doing a journey to Bethlehem like what Mary and Joseph did. We all had to dress up like shepherds. It was actually really fun. David's mom even cooks a traditional Israeli dinner that we eat by candlelight. David and I got to be super authentic - our head scarves were actually from Jerusalem. We even used Baby Christopher lying in his crib as our Baby Jesus in the manger.

David's mom took the rest of the pictures from that night and I have not downloaded them from her yet so above is the only picture I have from Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning we opened our stockings and all our gifts with David's family. I was very surprised that despite David constantly telling me no, he went ahead and surprised me with a Wii! I have been wanting one so that I can play that Just Dance game for about the past 3 months! What a great husband David is! Although, I think he secretly bought it for himself. He got the red one because it came with Super Mario Brothers, and I'm pretty sure he has played that WAY more than I have played.

After we opened presents and got dressed, we headed to David's grandparent's house in Provo for a big Christmas brunch with all of David's extended family. The food was yummy and it is always super fun to hang out with David's aunts, uncles, and cousins. After that we headed back to our house to see my parents and the Lauricellas and Himes.

When we got home, we were able to open our gifts from the Dynes side. Matt and Michalle got us THE CUTEST green kitchen items - spatulas, measuring cups, cutting board, towels. My parents gave us some great gifts, too - best of all they gave me the grill pan I have been dying for since September! Now I can grill my meat on the stove top just like Pioneer Woman! Here is another picture of me and Allie in her adorable Christmas pajamas she inherited from her cousin, Addie.

And to end, our yearly Dynes Christmas photo. We did forget to do the funny shot, though. :( All in all, we had a wonderful Christmas break and were so glad to spend it with so much family on both sides. I hope everyone else had a great Christmas, too!

The Joys of Homeownership

2010-12-18T20:30:00.000-08:00

We have been in our home for a little over a month now and have already learned how wonderful it is to own your own house. The weekend we moved in, the water dispenser on our refrigerator did not work. No water came out, and no ice was being made. We messed with the waterline a little bit and only made the problem worse. Rather than no water, we got way too much water and it leaked down in to the basement. Good thing we have an unfinished basement! We called the home builder and they promptly came out and fixed the problem for me.

Then the Monday after Thanksgiving our dishwasher leaked all over the floor. Again, we called the home builder and they sent their plumbers out the next morning. The plumbers checked all their water lines and found out that we had just been given a faulty dishwasher. Yes, we were the ones of all the hundreds of these dishwashers that the home builder installs to have the faulty one. That Thursday RC Willey sent out an appliance guy to check out the dishwasher (since the dishwasher was purchased from RC Willey). The guy seemed a bit incompetent to me and David and told us that he taped the hose in but that it was just a poor design of a dishwasher. Thank you appliance guy. That makes me feel 100% better. RC Willey was not happy to hear about that. They immediately apologized to me over the phone and promised that they will have someone come out and check the dishwasher again and replace the kitchen floor, which is now warped and lifting up, and replace the baseboard on the wall that is now ruined. They have yet to come out and do that, but I am not too worried. It will happen soon enough. In the mean time, looks like that tape is holding up - no leaks yet!

While it has been a bit annoying to have to deal with these things, there are 3 little words that always make me happy at the end of the day: home builder's warranty. Thank goodness for that! Let's hope the next 11 months are a lot less eventful!

Moving In

2010-12-05T16:06:00.001-08:00

I must say - moving is exhausting! Wow what a tiring weekend we had when we moved in. We moved in to our new house the second weekend in November! After staying up late packing all week long, I took Friday off work so that I could stay at the house while our washer/dryer, tv, satellite, and internet were delivered/set up. My sister, Angela, and my nephew, Bradley, were SO nice to come spend the day with me so that I was not all alone. The night before David and I had bought a bunch of furniture from Ikea, meaning we needed to put it all together. David told me he didn't think I could put together the TV stand together so of course I had to put that together while he was at work - just to prove him wrong. With the help of Angela, three hours later and a few mistakes - we had it all put together!

Then around 4 pm, we headed back to my apartment. David met us there with a U-Haul truck so we could load everything up. Man did I underestimate how much stuff we had. I was so sure it would all fit in a 14 foot truck. We had to fill the U-Haul plus a truck we borrowed from my co-worker, plus the pontiac, and then come back one more time for our bed and dressers. A HUGE thank you to Angela, Scott, Bradley, Paul, Lauri, Dina, Cari, Seth, Mike, and Mike's brother for helping us! That was possibly one of the most exhausting, tiring weekends of my life. It doesn't help that I am OCD and have to have everything unpacked and put together immediately.

We are in and definitely loving it! We still don't feel like we are living in our house - maybe we will after we make that first mortgage payment. We haven't put up much decorations but here are some pictures of the house. (Sorry they are in random order - I was too lazy to reorganize them):

A shot of our study/guest room #2

Living Room with David's early Christmas present - his new TV

Our wonderfully, gigantic pantry - I love it - and I don't come even close to filling it up

Our kitchen

This is what you see when you walk in the front door - the stairs go to the unfinished basement

A shot of the living/dining/kitchen - and our piano on loan from Angela

The laundry room - love love love the washer/dryer!

Master bedroom - doors to the master bathroom and master closet

Guest room #1

Another view of the study/guest room #2 - the sofa has a pull out bed

And that is it! I LOVE playing host so anyone is welcome anytime!!

Design Success

2010-11-30T19:54:00.000-08:00

Thank you to everyone for your input on the chairs!! I made my choice last Wednesday and was able to cover all the chairs before Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving was great - we had David's grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and family over to eat all the yummy pies (and one cheesecake for me) that David's mom made.

Before:

After:

I thought they turned out super cute! Lately, I have been obsessed with the show "Sarah's House" on HGTV - the one where she redoes the farm house. I have been trying to decorate more how she would - lots of super cute patterns and colors - so I thought the blue striped would work well. Thanks again everyone!

Help Needed! Fast!

2010-11-22T18:05:00.001-08:00

David and I are all moved in and we have signed the loan documents! We are officially homeloaners! (That is what David called it). I will post pictures and more details later but first I need design help ASAP!

We purchased this dining set from Ikea - (HUGE thank you to Scott and Angela for putting basically the whole thing together for us!!) I want to cover the seats with fabric so that I have more color in the kitchen area.

For the living room, Angela helped me make these pillows! Yes, you heard right. I actually sewed something! I LOVE them! My color scheme is green and varying shades of brown/tan/white. Here are the pillows we made:

I need help on choosing a fabric to cover the dining chairs with. I want to have this done by Thanksgiving. We are doing all the desserts and games at our house that night. Here are the three fabrics I found at Joann's that I like:

Please give me your opinions! Should I use one of those three or should I reuse one of the pillow fabrics. I only made one small pillow with the green/white circles so I have some left over of that.

I like the striped fabric with blue but I don't know if I should introduce another color in to the scheme or not. Don't they usually only pick about three colors on HGTV? I already have green, white and brown. HELP!

Thank you in advance for all your wonderful opinions!

Finished!

2010-10-31T11:19:00.000-07:00

The home is finished! We did a walk through with the project manager on Friday and put up blue tape on Saturday of all the places we want paint touched up. Now all we have to wait for is the painters to do the touch ups and the cleaners to do a final cleaning! Yay! We are also waiting as the mortgage company does an appraisal of the house and does the underwriting process. One more week and then we will be good to close on the loan and will officially be homeowners! (well mortgage payers - many, many, many more years until we actually own the home)

We are super excited and are starting to pack up the apartment. We already picked out our washer/dryer and those will be delivered the day we move in. I LOVE the washer/dryer we picked. I couldn't sleep the night we purchased them - I felt like a kid trying to sleep on Christmas Eve. And best of all we got a sweet deal on them. RC Willey was having a sale plus we got an extra 20% off the washer/dryer, plus 20% off the pedestals, plus buy one get one free on the pedestals, plus a giant bucket of HE detergent, and I talked them in to free delivery! What can I say - I love a good bargain!

I also went with Angela and ordered special fancy fabric to make pillows out of for the living room. I am going to do this living room in a totally different color scheme compared to our apartment. Even though our couches are not a modern style, I am trying to go for a more modern, contemporary look. And hopefully one day can replace our couches with modern, contemporary ones. We shall see. I can't wait! Here are some pics of the finished house. Hopefully, the next post I do of the house will be with all our furniture inside!

(It is already too cold in Utah so the yard will have to wait until Spring to be put in.)

(After installing the wrong appliances last week (black ones - yuck!), they finally got the correct ones installed.)

(We have a pretty sweet view of the mountains behind our house!)

"It broke off baby!"

2010-10-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

If you claim to be a Seinfeld fan, you should know what episode that is from. And if my car had a needle for the gas gauge, it probably would have broken off, too.

Here is the car with a full tank of gas:

And here is the car as David and I drove to dinner:

Needless to say, we quickly stopped for some gas.

Interior Shots of the House

2010-10-16T13:23:00.000-07:00

Week 6, 7, & 8 Exterior

2010-10-16T13:11:00.001-07:00

Week Six - they primed the stucco:

Week Seven - they painted the stucco and the trim and installed the garage door:

Week Eight - nothing much changed:

Week Eight - back shot of the house:

Healthy Eating

2010-10-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

So as you know I love to post yummy recipes I come across. I made my sister Lori's Salmon with Mustard Glaze and Pasta Salad a few weeks ago. You can click here to go to the recipe. The recipe was SO good! David and I love salmon but I have never been able to find great recipes online for what to cook with the salmon. We usually just eat it with some garlic and a few random spices and a side of instant mashed potatoes. Nothing that great. My sister posted this recipe and I knew I HAD to try it. Not only was the salmon yummy, but I am pretty sure that was the most vegetables I have ever cooked/eaten in my entire life - and they actually tasted really good! I highly recommend this for a yummy, healthy dinner. Below is my pic of the salmon before we put it in the oven. There are no pictures of the dish after we cooked it - we literally devoured the whole thing in about 5 minutes!

Five Weeks Down - Five Weeks To Go!

2010-09-26T18:21:00.001-07:00

Our house is halfway done! I am so ready to move in and buy new furniture and decorate! So far it looks like we should be in before Thanksgiving! I can't wait to spend the holidays in our first home! Here are just a few shots of the progress so far. We go out each Saturday to see what they have done.

Week One - they excavated and poured the footings:

Week Two - they poured the foundation walls:

Week Three - they framed the house:

Week Four - they finished framing and installed the insulation:

Week Five - they hung the drywall and sprayed on the stucco:

Labor Day Cooking

2010-09-09T17:40:00.000-07:00

It was so great to have some time off from work on Labor Day. Both David and I had the day off and for whatever reason we were both in cooking moods that day. We starting the morning off with a delicious breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and orange juice. The pancakes were from my new Pioneer Woman Cookbook - her secret ingredient is sour cream. I had never made pancakes before so I don't even know what you normally put in pancakes but either way they were delicious! Perfect consistency - and I didn't even burn any of them! (I couldn't find the recipe on her website; I guess it is only in her book so if you really want to try her pancakes, just let me know and I'll send it to you.) David made the eggs with loads of cheese - just like we like it - and some orange juice.

We didn't really have specific plans for the rest of the day, which was really nice. Sometimes it is nice to have nothing to do when you usually work all the time. We did go to the mall and buy me a birthday gift. :) Then we went to the Quarry in Provo since we had a coupon for it. The Quarry is an indoor rock climbing place. The last time we went was three years ago when we were dating. Wow are we out of shape compared to when we went three years ago! It was a ton of fun but our arms killed when we finished! What a work out!

(This picture is from when we went in 2007 - we forgot to take pictures this time)

After that we went home and started cooking dinner. My sister Lori recently posted her version of my brother-in-law Matt's homemade mac-n-cheese on her blog - thecluelesschef.blogspot.com - and I really wanted to try it. So David and I worked together and made this delicious meal! I used Lori's altered version and put diced red peppers and finely chopped spinach in the mac-n-cheese, too. (Oh and I couldn't find flax seed or wheat germ so we just crushed up some Ritz crackers and put them on top) It was so good! And it was nice to be eating some vegetables for once! Thank you to both Matt and Lori! And as Lori says on her blog - the recipe makes a ton - I made half the recipe and we still were able to eat it for three nights.

The best part was when you got a bite that had one of the big cheese cubes in it.

Then we ended the day with an exciting football game - Boise St. vs Virginia Tech. Sadly, it was back to work the next day. Hope everyone else had a great Labor Day!

Current Obsessions

2010-08-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

Currently I am obsessed with these two items:

Number 1:

In fact, I could barely put this down long enough to write this post. I started it yesterday and am already on page 250. I must finish it today. Otherwise, there is NO WAY I will be able to make it through the work day!!

And number 2:

In case you don't know what kind of dog this is, it is a puggle!! David and I went to a pet store last Monday night for fun. Since we will soon have a house with a yard, a dog could be in our somewhat near future (probably not for a year or so but it was still fun to look). At the pet store, David fell in love with a little puppy beagle. I fell in love with a little pug they had running around the pet store. Then I found this online the next day - a puggle - half pug/half beagle! We can both get half of the dog we want!! Too bad they are quite expensive - but so adorable! I can't get over it!

Is it worth it???

2010-08-15T11:17:00.001-07:00

I have been putting together a list of what items we will need to buy when we move in to our new house. I would really like to get a good vacuum. We currently have a vacuum that David's mom gave us - I think someone gave it to her. It is a rather basic, cheap vacuum that smells like throw up whenever you vacuum with it. Needless to say, it is not that great at picking up dirt. I have never actually used a Dyson before but I have played with them in the store. Having a Dyson would definitely make vacuuming a lot more fun with the cool ball technology but is it worth that high price? Does anyone out there have a Dyson or has anyone ever actually vacuumed with a Dyson? If so, what model? Otherwise, does anyone have a great vacuum that is not a Dyson that they love? Let me know your opinions on what the best vacuum to get is!!

Exciting News!!!

2010-07-30T11:22:00.001-07:00

So David and I have some exciting news....we're building a house!!! Well, actually my company is building the house and selling it to us at a great deal! We met with the builder on Monday and picked out our exact lot and the floor plan we want. They are working on getting the building permits from the city and then construction will start!

Our lease ends in November so we will move in around Thanksgiving! We are super excited and very nervous! I feel way too young to be a home owner! I've never even mowed a lawn before! Looks like David will have lots to do on the weekend!

This is about what the house will look like. More or less. Yay!

Before and After

2010-07-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

So I had my hair appointment on Tuesday night, and here are the results!

My before picture - this was the very last picture taken of me as a blonde. It was taken Saturday night at Daniel and Heather's apartment.

My after pictures! (Sorry for the over bronzing - I wasn't used to the dark hair - and sorry for the Mexico soccer jersey - I was getting ready for bed)

The Age Old Question

2010-07-16T14:47:00.000-07:00

What color to dye my hair?!?!

I have a hair appointment with Julie on Tuesday, July 27th. I cannot decide what to do with my hair. All I know is I am definitely sick of it right now. Not to mention sick of my ENORMOUS roots!

Here are my options.

Go blonder. It is still summertime.

Stay with a medium, dirty blonde kind of color - brown and blonde highlights.

Lastly, go for brunette. I want a nice rich brown that almost has a tiny hint of red when the light hits it. Or do I wait until fall to go brunette? I just don't know. I need help!!!

The Girl Who Was on Fire - Almost

2010-07-13T17:32:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the cheesy title - I couldn't resist. I just finished reading The Hunger Games last night. I started Saturday, read Sunday, and then had about 100 pages left starting Monday. I was SO anxious all through work on Monday. I could not wait to get home and finish! I loved the book - it definitely had me hooked. But I think I want to wait until it is closer to the 3rd book coming out before I start the 2nd one - Catching Fire.

Anyway, so yesterday I almost did become the girl on fire. Just kidding. It wasn't that close a call but the weirdest thing happened to me. I was sitting at a light to turn left on my way to work in the morning. I had just missed the green light and this light takes forever to cycle through. I am sitting there with my front windows down (broken A/C) and suddenly I smell something burning. I look around to see if maybe someone is smoking but don't see anyone.

Then I see it. There is white smoke going up the back of the passenger seat and coming off the headrest! I start panicking trying to see what the smoke was coming from but couldn't find anything. The light turned green so I put all 4 windows down and sped to work. I just kept praying, "Please don't let the car blow up with me inside!" Luckily my work is approximately 2 minutes away once I get through the light.

I pulled over as soon as I got in to the parking lot and starting looking around the back seat. The burning smell was gone and the smoke was gone. I couldn't find anything. I started thinking maybe I was going crazy. I had barely gotten any sleep the night before because I couldn't stop thinking about the Hunger Games.

I called David to see what he had to say and then we figured it out. On the floor of the back seat, behind the passenger seat, I have a huge make-up mirror. One side of the mirror is a big magnifying glass. We decided that the sun must have been hitting the mirror just right and was starting to burn the back seat.

Lo and behold, I went down to the parking garage and searched the back seat and there on the bottom of the passenger seat was a 3 inch mark where the fabric burned off! The sunlight when I was sitting at the stop light was hitting the mirror just right and started to burn the passenger seat! Is that crazy or what? If the stop light was any longer I may have become the girl who was on fire! haha

2 Years Already?

2010-07-08T18:08:00.000-07:00

I know people always say this, but I really can't believe David and I have been married for two years! The past two years really have flown by - especially the last year. Being out of school and just working every day really makes the days fly by. So on June 21st was mine and David's anniversary. That was a Monday so we decided to celebrate the weekend prior to that. Once we decided that, some things came up for that weekend so we worked around them and ended up having a packed weekend.

We began Friday evening by both rushing home from work so that we could head up to Salt Lake. It was David's cousin Will's 7th birthday so us and all of David's cousins were invited to see Toy Story 3 at the Gateway Mall. The movie was really good! And of course, I teared up at the end. When do I not. Then we all went and got ice cream at Ben & Jerry's. Also, there was some chalk drawing contest going on in the main street that runs through the mall. The drawings were amazing!

Will's birthday party was going to continue in the morning at a Gymnastics Training Center (GTC) and David really wanted to go so we decided to get a hotel room in Salt Lake as a way to go to the gymnastics thing and for our anniversary celebration. We stayed at the Little America Hotel. It was really nice - we originally tried to stay their for our wedding night, but it was all booked. While we were gone at the movie, hotel workers came in and turned on classical music in our room, laid out some robes, and put little chocolates on our bed! We didn't even tell them we were there for anything special. How sweet is that?

We woke up early Saturday morning to head over to the GTC. David went to his other cousin's bday party here last year and loved it. It is a gymnastics center that has trampolines, vaults, rings, bars, all gymnastic equipment and then it has giant foam pits all around. So you can run and do the vault and land in a big foam pit. David LOVES this place. And yes, everyone at the party was under the age of 10 except for David.

We were there for about an hour and a half and then headed back to Provo to go to Seven Peaks. Neither of us had been back to Seven Peaks since the summer of 2007 when we first started dating. It was super fun but like always our feet KILLED by the end of the day. I don't know what it is about Seven Peaks but I always leave there barely able to walk. We rode all the rides and enjoyed laying out in the sun for a bit.

Then we headed home to get ready for our special dinner. David planned a special dinner for me that night. We headed back up to Salt Lake without me knowing where we were going. We ended up here:

We ate at a restaurant called the New Yorker. Apparently it has the "Best Chef" in Utah. It is owned by the people who own Market Street Grill.

The restaurant felt very New York-ish!

I love going to new restaurants. This one was quite interesting. The crowd was very interesting. There was a writer sitting at the bar scribbling down notes. There were 2 ladies in their 80's having dinner and tea with a man in his 30's who had a long ponytail and a shirt unbuttoned down to the middle of his chest. Then a hobo walked in off the street. All the waiters started looking at each other not knowing what to do. One finally gave him a menu. The hobo looked at it and then walked out. Weird.

David decided that we should order a "fun" appetizer so we ordered escargot. Neither of us had had it before and I'm not sure we would have it again. The escargot was cooked in a garlic butter so the taste was not bad. It was just kind of mushy, but they had you scoop it up with crunchy bread so that made for a nice contrast. The only bad thing about it was getting over it mentally. We each ate one bite and were fine. Then we started talking about snails. And then I almost couldn't stomach a second one. Looking at the escargot close up, it looks just like a snail. The shape, the texture, the look, everything is the same as snails you see outside your house on the ground. It was a bit creepy for my liking.

David ordered a salmon dish and I ordered the filet mignon. I would rate the food as just okay. I didn't like the sauce they put on my steak and potatoes. David and I decided that maybe rich people just have different food tastes than us. For us, just simple meals from Chili's tasted better than our meals here. But like I said - I love trying new restaurants so now I can say I have tried the New Yorker. Dessert was pretty yummy though! Turtle sundaes...mmm!

And that ended our night! It was a great anniversary and I can't wait for the many, many more David and I have ahead of us!

The Birthday Boy

2010-07-02T19:06:00.000-07:00

David turned 26 this year. It was his golden birthday in fact - 26 on the 26th! David's brother Ben who goes to BYU-Idaho surprised David and came down on Friday night to stay with us. On Saturday morning we decided to go hike the Y. The last time I hiked the Y was the week of our wedding in 2008. Two years made me forgot how horrible that hike is. It is so steep! Here is David being his crazy, daring self like always.

It was great hiking weather that day - blue skies but slightly cool so we did not get too hot on the hike.

David tricked me and made us hike all the way to the top of the Y.

But as a reward for making it all the way to the top, we went and ate at J-Dawgs afterward. mmmm. Then on Saturday night, David's entire family came over for dinner, games, and presents. I cooked some very, very delicious steak (thank you Rachel!) and more Pioneer Woman mashed potatoes and some garlic Pillsbury crescent rolls and a salad. David's mom brought some deviled eggs, too (David loves deviled eggs). Overall the dinner was a success! Then we had cheesecake for dessert. We opened presents and then played Team Trivial Pursuit. Here is David opening my presents to him. David randomly decided that he wants to take up golfing. A lot of people at his work golf so he thought he should start learning. I got him this golf bag at a second hand sports store and some other gifts.

My last gift to him was a round of golf for David, Ben, and his Dad at Hobblecreek Golf Course in Springville on Memorial Day. While none of them really know anything about golf - in fact it was both David and Ben's first times going to an actual golf course - they had a great time.

So that was David's Golden Birthday!! Happy Birthday David!!

Since his birthday, David's uncle gave him a full set of old golf clubs (a big thank you to Chuck!!) so we have gone to the driving range several times. Sadly, I pulled some muscles in my back from hitting golf balls and three weeks later my upper back STILL hurts. I went to the doctor and chiropractor but they can't really help me. The doctor asked me "how my game was." I had to tell him it was my first time even hitting a golf ball with a real golf club. Sad. Apparently when you pull muscles in your back, you just have to suffer for weeks and weeks and hope it goes away. Great.

And that concludes May! Hopefully I will get caught up for June! I mean July! Can't believe summer is halfway over!

Mothers and Birthdays in May

2010-06-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

I know this is a little behind, but I wanted to post some of what we did in May. May was both Mother's Day and my mother-in-law's birthday. Lauri had never been to Tucanos so I secretly submitted her name for a free birthday meal. David and I picked her up one Saturday for lunch and surprised her with a lunch at Tucanos. Plus since it was the Saturday before Mother's Day she got a flower and some chocolate covered strawberries - part of the Tucano's Mother's Day Special. The meal was delicious as always. We were glad that Lauri loved her meal! Here is a picture of David and his mom in front of the restaurant.

Then the next day was Mother's Day. David was so sweet and bought me these gorgeous roses as a "future" Mother's Day present. He originally kept claiming that he wasn't going to get me anything because I am not a real mother so I was very happy/surprised when he gave me these. Plus we had just been grocery shopping the day before and I had commented that I really like two-toned roses. I guess he does listen to me more than I think!

We celebrated Mother's Day by going to David's parents house and making dinner for David's mom. Since we are not in Texas to spend the day with my mom, we had some beautiful flowers delivered to my parents house for my mom. I have to say that I felt very grateful this Mother's Day. Not only do I have the best mother, I also have the best mother-in-law! They are both such great examples to me and I hope I can be like both of them and raise my children as they have both raised theirs.

Back to cooking dinner - things turned out great. We made the Dynes baked chicken that I have grew up eating every Sunday at my parents house. We also made Pioneer Woman's "Delicious Creamy Mashed Potatoes." And let me tell you they were creamy and delicious. Not to brag about myself but possibly the best mashed potatoes I have ever had. The secret ingredient: an entire package of cream cheese. Yum. David's sister also made a delicious spinach/blue cheese/bacon salad and his brother bought some very good Texas toast. Here is David with his mom. How cute.

The next weekend, we celebrated Lauri's birthday with the whole family. We decided to go up to Salt Lake and have the celebration at Daniel and Heather's apartment. Lauri wanted to go to the Salt Lake cemetery where all the LDS prophets are buried. It was a gorgeous day so it was nice to be outside and walking around. Here is David again with his Mom in front of President Grant's grave. (President Grant is one of David's favorite prophets so that is why they took the picture here.)

After the cemetery and after walking around the Gateway Mall, we all went to dinner at Sizzlers. I will say that we went to Sizzlers at Lauri's request, and I was a bit skeptical. I imagined the food to taste like Golden Corral and for every there to be old. Well, everyone there was old except for us but the food was actually good. I got a teriyaki steak that was delicious! The price, however, was not. Warning for anyone going to Sizzlers. They are a bit pricey and charge you for everything without telling you.

All in all it was a fun two weekends in May spent with family. Coming up - another birthday and more family time! So many holidays and birthdays in May for the Driggs family!

What is the Date???

2010-05-25T20:26:00.000-07:00

Monday - MAY 24th - started like this:

Yes, it was a blizzard. Photos taken at 8:30 am.

And ended like this:

Photo taken at 5:30 pm. What a weird day!

The Driggs in Disneyland!

2010-05-14T21:38:00.001-07:00

At the end of April, David and I and all his family went down to California for a little trip. Back in January we all did a day of service with Habitat for Humanity and all got free tickets to Disneyland. David, Daniel, and I drove down a day before the rest of the family. Daniel's wife, Heather, was already in California visiting her family, so we drove down to pick her up and then spend some time with my sister, Michalle, and brother-in-law, Matt. Although our visit with Matt and Michalle and Allie was short, we had so much fun! We ate dinner at a delicious place Michalle took me once before - Stone Fire or something like that. In the morning we went to Malibu to go to the beach. It was cold at first, then the sun came out and it warmed up a little, and then it got cloudy and cold again. It was nice to just walk along the beach, though, and enjoy the ocean view. It was Allie's first trip to the beach and she seemed to really like the waves. In the afternoon we said goodbye to Michalle and Allie. (Thank you again Lauricellas for letting us crash your place for the night! We loved it!!)

That afternoon we drove to our hotel in Anaheim and immediately headed for the hot tub. The rest of David's family arrived that night. The next morning was Disneyland!! It was so fun to all go as a big group! This was my second time ever going and the first time in many, many years that David's family all got to go together. The weather was perfect - warm and sunny. Also, the park was not too crowded. We rode so many rides - Space Mountain, Indiana Jones, Jungle Cruise, Splash Mountain, Small World, Astro Blasters, Mr. Toad, the Teacups, Autopia, Snow White, Peter Pan, Big Thunder Mountain, etc, etc. My favorite is still Big Thunder Mountain - I even had time to ride it twice this year!

This year we stayed for the fireworks show. It was such a good show! We were glad we stayed. David's parents, Daniel, and Heather left after the fireworks show. The rest of us stayed for one last ride - Indiana Jones again. Apparently everyone else in the park decided to do that. The line was really, really long. It took forever but was worth the wait. On our way out of the park, we took one last picture. Of all the people we could ask to take the picture, we asked a group of girls who were from.....BYU! Random!

All in all we were at Disneyland for about 14 hours. I wore tennis shoes, hoping that would help my feet, but they still killed the next day. Luckily, our plans were to go and relax at Manhattan Beach. I had never been to that beach, and I really loved it. The beach houses along the coast were all so cute. Although it was sunny, the beach was SUPER windy. If you were not laying flat on the warm sand, you froze! It was still nice to be outside. I tried to find some beach cruisers to rent but had no luck. Maybe on my next trip.

We ate dinner that night at a mexican restaurant called La Paz in El Segundo and then headed to Santa Monica to walk the pier. That was my first time for that, too. We just walked it briefly and then headed to our hotel in Rancho Cucamonga. It was cold and we were all tired. David grew up in Rancho Cucamonga, so they were all excited to go back. We woke up on Sunday morning and went to David's old ward. It was nice to meet some old family friends and see more of where he grew up. The area by his church was really pretty. It was definitely the nicest LDS church building I had ever been to. After church we headed back to Utah. It was a short fun but was a lot of fun. Hopefully next time we can take a longer trip and enjoy the beach more. And next time I need to take the following Monday off from work - I was SO exhausted the following week!

"Easy" - Not So Much

2010-05-08T18:32:00.001-07:00

Well, I had yet another wonderful cooking experience. I am just such a good cook. It really is amazing. I decided to cook a meal that Michalle sent me from her crock pot recipe book called "Easy Cheesy BBQ Chicken." It consisted of chicken, bbq sauce, cheese, and bacon. Easy. Just as the recipe said. All I had to do was stick the chicken in the crock pot with a whole bottle of bbq sauce before work. Then I set the crock pot to low for 8 1/2 hours. The recipe called for 8-9 so I figured I would do 8 1/2 and when I got home in 8 hours I would check the chicken.

Well when I got off work, I received a text from David saying, "We are going out to eat tonight. Call me if you want to know why." Well as it turns out, the recipe was COMPLETELY wrong. Cooking chicken for 8 hours is apparently WAY too long but maybe you guys can be the judge of that:

The apartment smelled the entire night - even after lighting multiple candles. It took me FOREVER to scrape off the burnt bbq sauce from the sides of the crock pot. Needless to say, we ended up going to Noodles & Co. for dinner. Tomorrow I am cooking dinner for my mother-in-law for Mother's Day so cross your fingers everyone - I'll need all the luck/help I can get!!

Two Days!!

2010-04-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

I have been working at my current job since August and on Tuesday night I am taking my first vacation!!! Yes, I have pretty much worked straight for 8 1/2 months! David, Daniel (David's brother), and I will be heading to California on Tuesday night for some fun at the beach and Disneyland!! Can't wait!!

Chocolate Lovers Only

2010-04-18T15:17:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE chocolate! And most recently I love to cook - or at least attempt to cook. For the past three years or so, each General Conference, David's mom, sisters, sister-in-law, and I do a girls' night during the priesthood session of conference. This year David's mom asked me to bring a dessert. She informed me that she and David's sister had just finished a year of no chocolate so I should bring something with chocolate. (On a side note: I have no idea how they did that. After every meal I get a very intense craving for chocolate. It's as though no meal is complete until I have something chocolate.)

I immediately went to Pioneer Woman in search of a delicious recipe. I decided to make her molten chocolate lava cakes. They were really easy and really, really good! But you have to have a side of ice cream or something because they are really rich! Mine of course did not look as perfect and beautiful as Pioneer Woman's but they still tasted super good!!

Bummed

2010-04-01T20:41:00.000-07:00

Today was a very odd day. I started my morning by scraping snow and ice off my car. Then around 11 am I looked outside and there was a blizzard! (My office doesn't have windows in it so I only see outside when I get up to walk to the copy room/ break room/ someone else's office.) It was snowing like crazy and there was snow on the ground. Then I walk by a window again around 1:30 pm and it was blue skies with the sun shining! How weird is that?!? Just a typical Spring day in Utah. But on to the real reason I am bummed. The owner of my company invited David and I to fly down to Arizona tomorrow night to stay at their Arizona home and then fly back with them next Wednesday! How fun would that have been?!?!! But sadly, David doesn't have enough vacation hours - he accumulates vacation hours with each paycheck and will barely have enough to go on our trip to California at the end of April - plus we do lots of stuff with family for Conference/Easter weekend. In fact we are having a huge breakfast at David's parent's house Sunday morning, then a big lunch at my grandma's, and then a big family dinner at David's aunt's house in Salt Lake that night. A pretty full Sunday. So it would have been sad to miss all of that, but how fun would it have been to take a spontaneous trip to Arizona to bask in the sun for five days! Well, someday it will work out....I hope. :)

On a more positive note - I figured out how to record two channels at one time on the DVR for when I am gone and have multiple shows to watch. Gotta love modern technology. Oh and I bought a lot of Easter candy! Dying to eat it!

March Happenings

2010-03-21T11:53:00.001-07:00

I can't believe March is already almost over. I still feel like Christmas was just yesterday. This post is really random and basically just a collection of things that have happened so far this month.

We bought new tires at Big-O Tires for our Civic. The next morning, we went out to the car and this is what had happened over night.

David and I were furious! Brand new tires and one went flat over night. Unfortunately, this was Sunday morning so we had to wait until Monday morning. The manager claimed that they just didn't seal it right but that everything was fine. Needless to say, I will not be a repeat customer at Big-O Tires. The car drives a LOT smoother now so we are happy about that. The car ride had gotten so shaky with the old tires that on the freeway, your arms would shake and your voice would vibrate while you sang along with the radio.

On the 13th, David and I ran the Rex Lee 5k Run at BYU. This was our 2nd year together to run it and my 3rd year. The weather forecast called for snow that day so we were not exactly looking forward to the run. We didn't run as well as last year but were happy to just have finished it. And luckily it didn't start snowing that day until after the race. And then it snowed all day long.

David thought it would be funny to make the exact same pose he made last year for the Rex Lee Run. How he remembered they way he posed a year ago - I have no idea. I'm telling you - he has a freakish memory about the weirdest things. Gotta love that about him!

I didn't actually plan it this way but I ended up making spinach alfredo tortellini on St. Patrick's Day. I thought it was a great coincidence that our food was green! And I worked on my food photography skills before I took this. Much better if I do say so myself.

I also did a lot of decorating this month!! Now that I started, I seriously can't stop. I had to promise David that I would stop until after our trip to California in April but I am just dying inside! I keep thinking of all these really cool things I want to make for the apartment!!!!

Here is a picture I painted to put above our table. I bought a blank canvas from a craft store and then just used the paint I had left over from the frames above our couch. I actually copied this from a painting I saw on etsy.com. The lady wanted $150 for her painting. Seriously. It was just some lines and circles so I figured I could just do it myself. It didn't come out exactly like hers but it will do. It's better than just a blank, boring wall.

So here is the dining area. I also got that big frame on the right at the craft store (Roberts) for only $15! You can't tell from far away but it is black with hints of red paint showing and it has swirls. All the frames in my living room have swirls so I loved how it tied right in!

Here is our guest bedroom. Hotel Driggs is officially open! For real. I am dying for someone to come stay at our apartment now! The black bulletin board you see was actually another craft I did. I painted a rather hideous gold mirror black and then took out the mirror part. David sawed down an old bulletin board I had and we put it in the frame.

Here is the frame of the bulletin board up close. I really like the way it turned out - and the best part was everything was free! My grandma gave me the frame and I already had the bulletin board and the black paint!

Another shot of the room - I still need to organize that closet. I need a giant filing cabinet in there so I can get rid of the many boxes I have full of old papers, text books, and random things.

The only thing left to do in this room is decorate these two walls. I have a big black mirror and a bunch of black frames that I think I will put up above the bed. I kind of want to get one of those sticker wall quotes for the other wall. Roberts has a bunch for only about $14. We'll see. Oh and that is the memory foam mattress we got! It came in a pretty small box - about 7 inches deep, 3 feet wide, and about 4 feet long. We just pulled the mattress out and it magically expanded into a queen size bed! Pretty cool!

And last, we just celebrated David's brother's (Daniel) birthday yesterday up in Salt Lake. This is a picture of Daniel and Heather's dog - Einstein. He is so cute that I just wanted to sneak a picture of him in. He is such a great little dog and I love his argyle sweater!

So that is our March so far! We have had a really busy month but have had a lot of fun! We are really enjoying March Madness right now, too! Sadly, BYU lost yesterday and my bracket is completely ruined. I had picked Kansas to win the whole thing but they lost yesterday!! Crazy - but it definitely makes this year's March Madness so much more interesting!

$2.95 Shipping

2010-03-11T20:21:00.000-08:00

I purchased a mattress from Overstock.com last night. That's right a mattress. And the best part of all - $2.95 shipping. They claim that no matter what or how much you order, you only pay $2.95 to ship it and they were right! Gotta love it.

So David and I had that extra box spring for our guest room. I found some bed rails on ksl.com for $10. Gotta love that, too! The cheapest I could find for new ones were $120 - and that was at DI (yes, they do sell new stuff, too). Then Target was having a sale on this bedding in a bag so David let me buy it. For $59 we got a super cute comforter, bed skirt, 4 shams, and 2 decorative pillows.

We set everything up in the guest room and for now just blew up our air mattress and put it on the bed. I mentioned to David that I had googled "mattress sale" and it pulled up Overstock.com. They had a Serta memory foam mattresses on sale from like $950 down to $300. I guess the excitement of me purchasing the bed rails and the comforter and knowing his brother and wife would be coming to stay with us over the weekend got David so excited that he actually gave me permission to buy the mattress. I was so sure we wouldn't be buying one for another few months. But we bought it! And now I keep our Overstock.com account up all day at work so I can monitor the progress of our mattress. I am SO EXCITED!

The best part is - well really two "best parts" - first, the mattress got really good reviews, which is comforting to know. And second, apparently memory foam mattress come rather small and you have to unwrap them and let them expand on their own for about 24 hours. I just keep imagining those little dinosaur things you put in water and they grow. I would be so happy if the mattress came in a little shoe size box and grew to a big queen size bed. I'll let you know how that goes.

And I'll post some pictures of the guest room soon. I am just finishing turning an old ugly gold mirror into a cute, chic bulletin board to put above the desk in that room. I seriously love that guest room. It looks way nicer than our actual bedroom. I promised David I wouldn't buy any more home decor until after our trip to California in April since I had bought so much lately. But as soon as May comes, our bedroom will be decorated finally!!

Yummy Chicken

2010-03-07T12:29:00.000-08:00

Anyone who knows me knows that my favorite meat in the world is chicken! I love pretty much any kind of chicken - baked, grilled, nugget form, wrapped in bacon, whatever it may be. At work a girl gave me a recipe for New Orleans Rubbed Chicken. It was SO GOOD! (I wish I could have credited it to my new favorite chef - Pioneer Woman - but I can't). It was so delicious that David proclaimed it his favorite meat dish I have ever made for him! So I wanted to share it with anyone else who is looked for a really, really easy, really delicious recipe.

(The recipe is for 4 chicken breasts so when I made it for David and me, I just cut everything in half)

Ingredients:

- 1 Tbsp dried thyme

- 1/2 Tbsp ground black pepper

- 1 tsp garlic pepper

- 1/2 tsp cayenne/red pepper, to taste

- 1/8 tsp salt

- 4 small boneless, skinless chicken breasts

- 1 tsp EVOO

- 1/3 cup apricot fruit preserves

- 2 Tbsp spicy brown mustard

1. In a small bowl, mix thyme, pepper, garlic, cayenne, and salt. (I used the amount of cayenne pepper the recipe called for and the chicken had a nice spicy kick. If you like really spicy food, add more and if you don't like spicy food add less or take it out completely)

2. Place chick on a large plate. Drizzle with oil. Rub to coat the chicken evenly with the oil. Sprinkle the spice mixture over the chicken. Rub to coat evenly. Cover with plastic. Refrigerate for at least ten minutes to let the spices soak in. (I put it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes while I made our side dishes. And I made David do this entire step because raw meat is disgusting.)

3. Meanwhile, spoon the preserves into a small microwavable bowl. Cook on low power in 15 second intervals or until melted. Stir in the mustard until well blended. Set aside. (I was nervous about making this mixture. I thought it sounded gross but you must make it! It made the dish a million times even more delicious than it already was! And I only had honey dijon mustard so I just used that.)

4. Place chicken on grill (or stove top) and cook each side for 3 to 5 minutes per side or until no longer pink. Serve each chicken with the Apricot/Mustard sauce spooned on the top.

Enjoy! It was really, really good!

Oh and here are the links to the two Pioneer Woman recipes I made earlier.

Hot and Sweet Drumsticks (and with the left over apricot preserves you can make the above recipe!)

Steak with Onion-Blue Cheese Sauce

And coming this week will be Pioneer Woman's Ranch Style Chicken. It involves chicken, bacon, and cheese. Can't get better than that.

HGTV Protege

2010-03-04T18:06:00.000-08:00

Okay so not really. In fact not at all. I love watching HGTV and seeing how they decorate things, but I just get so overwhelmed when I try to decide how to decorate my apartment. Plus I don't think I'm really that good at it. So many of my friends are SO good at it, and I wish I was. But anyway I made my first attempt at a DIY decorating project. Originally I wanted to just buy a large painting to go over the couch, but in case you haven't looked at the prices of art lately, they are ridiculously expensive! I even thought I would check out etsy but no luck. Even the people on there charge at least $200 plus shipping for a somewhat large painting. Plus, in case you don't know David very well, he hates to spend money. Especially on girly, pointless things like art.

So here was my first project. Don't worry - I have a few more in mind to attempt.

I bought these frames from Ikea for only $2.99 each.

Then I painted them.

Then, following in the footsteps of David Bromstead (one of my favorite HGTV designers), I made little mini cut outs of the frames so that I could organize them how I wanted them. He draws cute little pictures of the rooms he decorates and lets the homeowners pick different couches and things.

After that David (David my husband that is - not David Bromstead) helped me by measuring the distance between the frames and making straight lines on the wall with his level and a bunch of other stuff that I never would have done. I definitely would have just eye balled everything and it definitely would have come out crooked. So here is the finished project! I pulled the three colors from three of the stripes in those pillows on the couch.

One project down, many more to go!

Why Today of All Days?

2010-03-04T17:57:00.000-08:00

Just when you think this is coming:

This comes instead:

And of all days to come it comes on a Thursday. In case you didn't know, satellite TV and snow do not mix. So it is Thursday night and my satellite cannot find signal. And let me list all of the shows I will be missing because of it:

1. Project Runway (last weeks episode that airs again today - my DVR randomly recorded the wrong thing - don't even get me started on that)

2. Project Runway (new episode)

3. Models of the Runway (yes, I am admitting that I watch that dumb half hour show that comes on after Project Runway about the models)

4. American Idol Results Show

5. The Office - the baby episode!

6. Grey's Anatomy

All of this I am missing because it just had to snow today! It was nice and warm and sunny this morning. I didn't even wear my coat when I went out to lunch at work! And now everything is covered in snow!

Company Retreat

2010-03-02T18:52:00.000-08:00

Last week my company had a retreat down to Arizona for three days. We flew down on the company plane Wednesday during a snow storm. That was a pretty frightening experience. The plane is just a tiny nine seater plane and you couldn't see anything out the windows. All I kept thinking was, "what if we fly right in to a mountain?"! Luckily we have an amazing pilot who knew exactly what he was doing.

The owners of the company recently purchased a new home in Mesa, so we went to stay there. The house was gorgeous! All the details in the house were just beautiful. I especially loved that the house was in the middle of an orange orchard! Each morning we had fresh squeezed orange juice with our breakfast! I never thought Arizona would be so green, but it really was pretty. The weather was amazing, too. It was 70 degrees, sunny and beautiful.

Each day we met as a company for about four hours and then spent the rest of the afternoons doing different activities. The first night we went to the owners' friend's house. He is an amazing pianist and actually performed for the Reflections of Christ church videos. He performed for us and then we watched that hockey movie "Miracle" in his theater room. The next afternoon afternoon we went to downtown Scottsdale to shop and then to a movie - I saw Valentine's Day (not so great. Big cast but I probably won't see it again). The last afternoon we went to a bunch of garage sales/swap meet thing - the owner loves garage sales.

One morning during our meetings, a stray dog came wandering in to the front courtyard area of the house. While sitting there, a thought crossed my mind that I should move my shoes. I had placed them in the garage to dry off because I had gotten them muddy when picking oranges. I just ignored it and stayed in the meeting. Afterward I went outside to check on them and one was missing! I was so upset! It was my Vans that David had just bought me for Christmas! About 15 minutes later, one of my coworkers starting looking around the outside of the house and found my shoe in some bushes! I was SO relieved! (And so was David because now he wouldn't have to buy me a new pair.)

Then we flew home Friday night. I sat in the copilot seat for the flight home. It was so fun to wear the headphones and talk in the little microphone. Our pilot showed me how everything works and told me some great stories about different flights he has had over the years.

All in all it was a great retreat and it got me really excited for the company! They are going to start letting me do more with the company and with analyzing investments and things. I am really excited for this next year!

Pioneer Woman Attempt #2 - SUCCESS!

2010-02-22T19:54:00.001-08:00

Last Friday night was my second attempt at a Pioneer Woman meal, as well as my second attempt at making a baked potato. And I must say what a success! I conquered the potatoes! Take that potato karma police!

David's mom and sister were out of town so we invited David's dad over for dinner. I decided to make Pioneer Woman's Hot and Sweet Drumsticks, with baked potatoes, and roasted thyme carrots (also from Pioneer Woman). It was all so delicious! I even liked the carrots! I usually hate carrots but am trying to eat more vegetables so I thought that Pioneer Woman's recipe of covering them with evoo (for all you non Rachael Ray fans that is extra virgin olive oil), thyme, and roasting them in the oven might hide the nasty carrot taste enough for me to eat them. And it did. However, David did not like the mushiness of them - he likes the crispness of uncooked carrots.

But the best part of the night was the baked potatoes. I even cooked three of them this time. And did not burn my finger. Which is still scarred from last time - possibly for the rest of my life. The magic number was an hour and ten minutes at 350. Sorry to toot my own horn, but I was very excited that the potatoes actually cooked this time!

And while I am rambling about food, I just have to say that Carlee's penne rosa recipe in the Dynes Delights Cook Book is amazing. I have made it twice in the past month and David and I love it! So good! So thank you Carlee!

Valentine's Day!

2010-02-19T21:19:00.000-08:00

David and I finally got to celebrate Valentine's Day together this year - although we went out on Saturday night rather than Sunday. For both of the past two years, David had a construction management competition in Reno on Valentine's Day. Valentine's weekend starting with me going to work that Friday. Shortly after arriving, these roses were delivered to my office! So thoughtful of David!

Then on Saturday, David had to work all day long until about 4:30. He came home from work with a box of chocolates in hand and we got ready for dinner. David doesn't think Valentine's Day is a real holiday so he likes to just do a really nice dinner and not really do much of the present thing. We recently bought David two suits so I bought him two ties to match them as a Valentine's present - although again David insisted that boys should not get Valentine's presents I just couldn't resist. We decided that we wanted to try out the restaurant Chef's Table in Orem. It is supposedly the nicest restaurant in Utah Valley and I had always wanted to go there just to try it out. Sadly, I forgot my camera - I was positive I put it in my purse!

My dish was really good. I ordered the steak with a mango chutney sauce. That steak was amazing, and the mango sauce was even better. David, however, chose his dish poorly. He claimed he was in the mood for something light, so he ordered the halibut fish. He did not like it so much. Especially not for the price. So if you ever find yourself in Orem, Utah at Chef's Table - make sure you go with one of the steak items. We then had creme brulee for dessert. I had never had it before and all I could think of was the bit on "My Best Friend's Wedding" about jello and creme brulee. It was okay but not that great. But overall the atmosphere at the restaurant was nice and romantic and the service was great. The food just may not have been worth the price.

Then we went home and David surprised me with the movie P.S. I Love You to watch. What a treat for me! David hates chick flicks but he managed to stay out on the couch with me the whole time! Of course he was asleep for 99% of the movie but that's okay!

It was nice to get to dress up, have a nice dinner, and watch a girly movie while eating way more chocolate than I should have. Thank you for a great Valentine's Day David!

Pioneer Woman Attempt #1

2010-02-15T13:40:00.001-08:00

Ever since the new year, I have started to really get in to cooking. Maybe now that David and I are both graduated and real adults, I'm just naturally wanting to fill that "housewife" role. Anyway, I had heard several of my friends mention the cooking website, thepioneerwoman.com so I finally decided to check it out last week. I am obsessed! Not only are her meals simple and delicious looking, but she is hilarious to read and she posts step by step pictures of what to do. Exactly what a new, inexperienced at cooking housewife needs. If you have never checked out her website - do it now! Seriously, I'm obsessed.

So I chose three recipes to try out. This past Friday I set out to make the first one - grilled steaks with an onion blue cheese sauce. The steaks were easy enough to cook - I just used our George Foreman grill. Although does any one else notice that the George Foreman grills really dry out the meat? I really want to buy a grill pan that goes on the top of the stove. Pioneer Woman uses one so they must be wonderful. The sauce was super easy - my kind of dish. You just saute the onions, then add a cup of cream, and then 1/2 a cup of crumbled blue cheese. It was delicious! I am not the biggest blue cheese fan but mixed with the steak it was amazing. Here is Pioneer Woman's picture of the dish. David told me to remove the picture of my steak. Although it tasted delicious, my photography skills are lacking and he said the picture I took made the steak look like a cowpie - but I promise that it was delicious to the taste.

That is not the end of my cooking experience, however. The steak and sauce were great; my attempt at baking a potato - not so much. I know this is sad to admit, but before last Friday I had never baked a potato. I even had to call my dad to ask how to do it. I put two giant potatoes, wrapped in foil, in the oven at 375 degrees. Thirty minutes went by and not even close to being cooked. Another 15 minutes and still raw as ever. We decided to go ahead and eat the steaks. At that point I upped the oven to 425 degrees. Another thirty minutes and still not cooked! After another ten minutes, I pulled out the potatoes, thinking they were cooked. As I pulled them out, I burned my finger on the 425 degree oven. After waiting an hour and a half for potatoes and burning my finger, I was starting to get emotional. I sliced one of the potatoes in half and saw that only the very outer rim was cooked. The inside was still completely raw. And that was the straw that broke the camels back. I just started bawling. And my finger suddenly started burning. David had no idea what was even happening. He just came over and wrapped his arms around me and ordered me to put the potatoes down. What a mess I was! At that moment I had an "ah-ha!" moment. My dad cuts the potatoes in half before cooking them. I was so mad! For anyone keeping score: potatoes: 2, Karin: 0. Don't worry. My next pioneer woman dish is her "Hot & Sweet Drumsticks." And what better to pair with chicken drumsticks than a nice big baked potato.

To Shop or Not to Shop

2010-02-05T21:40:00.000-08:00

I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but I am not good at online shopping at all. I would much rather go to the store and try on the clothes. When it comes to swimsuits, however, it seems all the good swimsuits can only be found online - which is very frustrating. I have a rather long torso, so finding swimsuits that fit is really hard for me. After looking around online, I decided to buy this swimsuit from Victoria's Secret.

I was a little worried that it wouldn't be long enough for my torso so I anxiously waiting for it to come in the mail. Well, it came in finally and I tried it on. The length was no problem. The problem is that the cups are about half the size they are in the picture. There could be a wardrobe malfunction at any moment in this swimsuit!! So if anyone knows any secrets to online shopping - especially swimsuit shopping - let me know!!

And to update my office Biggest Loser challenge, after gaining 0.4 lbs, the next week I lost exactly 0.4 lbs putting me back to my original weight. How weird is that? I had even worked out for thirty minutes every day that week. Who knows. I kinda of slacked this week and have only worked out once so I may be eliminated this week. We'll see.

The Biggest Loser

2010-01-31T15:47:00.000-08:00

Three weeks ago, my office started an Office Biggest Loser Challenge. Each week there will be a different challenge and every Monday we have to weigh in to the office manager. Whoever loses the smallest percentage of body weight each week will be kicked out - just like on the show Biggest Loser. Wanting to show my good spirit and to bond with my coworkers, I decided to join in the fun. Tomorrow will be our third weigh in - and so far I have actually gained 0.4 of a pound rather than losing any weight. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

The first week, the challenge was to drink the recommended amount of water. Take your body weight and divide it in half - that is how many fluid ounces of water you should drink per day. I am proud to admit that I completed this challenge! It was so hard to drink that much water! I went to the bathroom a MILLION times a day! However, a lot of other people completed the challenge so we had to do a tie breaker at work, which I lost.

The second week, the challenge was to eat the recommended serving of fruit each day. Yeah I did not do so well at this challenge. You are supposed to have two cups of fruit a day. I probably had two cups of fruit the entire week. Luckily in week one no one was eliminated. They decided to be nice. In week two, they kicked out the people who had not been doing their weigh-ins. So I was still in!!

The third week, this past week, the challenge was to work out for 30 minutes a day for six days of the week. With David's help, I completed this challenge! We would run for 15 minutes on the treadmill in our apartment's clubhouse and then do 15 minutes on the bikes. Tomorrow is the weigh in so we will see how I do! I'm not actually caring if I lose weight so much as I would like to get in shape. I can't even run the entire fifteen minutes on the treadmill. The competition lasts for 12 weeks. My hope is that by the end, I can run for at least thirty minutes straight. I'll keep you all updated - because I'm sure you all are really interested in this. haha! Wish me luck!

Mattress Madness.

2010-01-20T22:08:00.000-08:00

After two months of sleeping on an air mattress, David and I finally got a real mattress this past Saturday!! We actually bought it two weeks ago but had to wait for it to be delivered. We got it at Macy's on sale - originally $1400 and we got it for $400! I was so proud of myself; I love a good bargain.

Of course, like most things in life, David and I learn as we go. We are new to the real world and having to actually buy furniture, cook, clean, blah, blah, blah. We purchased a mattress and box spring. Well, guess what? We own a platform bed. Platform beds do not use box springs. When the delivery men brought our mattress, the mattress was actually taller than the head board! It looked so goofy! After many phone calls to my mother and a few google searches, we found out that we have a platform bed. I didn't even know what that was. Apparently, they are big in Europe/Ikea. So now we have a super comfy, wonderful mattress on our bed and a box spring sitting in our other bedroom. Eventually we will get another mattress to put on the box spring. After we buy the million other things we would like to purchase now that David is working. But yay for us! No more air mattress! No more be woken up every ten minutes in the night to the sound of the mattress squeaking and creaking! David and I are such adults now.

On a different note, David started working full time at Zwick Construction. He loves his job and I love that he loves it! We went to Happy Sumo last friday to celebrate his first paycheck - in over eight months! So for now life is good. We are just working away and relaxing at night. I have actually started cooking a lot. I planned a bunch of meals and did a big shopping trip last week and have cooked four delicious meals. Shout out to Carlee - I made your penne rosa and loved it! It was amazing.

So that is what is going on in our lives. Now that the holidays and craziness are over I will try to give more updates. And more pictures. Pictures always make a blog post better. Sorry this one is lacking. Hope everyone's 2010 is going well!

Coupon Mom Inspiration

2010-01-06T20:36:00.000-08:00

This morning on the Today Show, I watched the most inspiring, fascinating segment. Apparently there is a lady out there named the Coupon Mom. She writes books and comes on to talk shows to tell about clipping coupons. The Today Show had her take a girl shopping. When the cashier rang up their bill, it totaled just under $100. Then the Coupon Mom stepped in with her coupons. The total came to $0.25! Yes twenty five cents!! Is that crazy or what! I had been wanting to start clipping coupons to save a few dollars here and there and then I saw this segment. I am determined to clip coupons this week. If anyone has any tips or suggestions or easy websites to use - let me know!!

What is my Problem???

2009-12-19T23:24:00.001-08:00

I split my pants twice today. Not once but TWICE. This morning I had on pajama pants while I was cleaning the apartment (in preparation for Michalle and Matt coming on Wednesday.) I was stretched across my bed dusting the back part of the bed. I turn to get up and the entire crotch split open. Okay fine. I have had those pajama pants since 7th grade. (Shout out to Catherine Eiserman - I'm pretty sure we both owned them and we bought them for a pajama themed Club 91 Dance. And yes I still wear them on occasion.) I change into real clothes after the incident and get on with my day. Then David and I came home from seeing the lights at Temple Square around 11 pm. I put on a different pair of pajama pants and as I get off the couch from sitting with my legs stretched weird, they rip!! In the same spot as the others! TWICE! I split my pants twice. And these ones aren't 10 years old. (I think they are only 6 years old.) Seriously, though. What is my problem? Good thing David and I decided to start a Christmas Eve tradition of buying each other new pajamas each year. (We decided this before today's incident in case you are wondering. Just a nice coincidence.)

Look What You Did...

2009-12-12T20:57:00.001-08:00

...You little jerk! haha I love Christmas and I LOVE Home Alone! In fact, me, David, and his little sister watched it last night. And as usual I was laughing the whole time and crying by the end. Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I love buying presents for people, putting up decorations, doing family traditions, and see all the pretty lights everywhere.

Last Saturday, David's friend Scott and Scott's wife Allison invited us to see the Hale Center's performance of "A Christmas Carol." I really lik

ed it! It was the first time David and I had been to the Hale Center. They do such a good job. The pr

ops and furniture for each scene would pop up out of the ground or come down from the ceiling. It was really cool. And they guy who played Scrooge was really good. I very much recommend going to see this - I even recommend it more than that 3D Jim Carrey Christmas Carol movie - that I did not like so much.

Before the play, we stopped by this house in Sandy that has the lights that flash in tune with the Christmas music on the radio. It was pretty cool - I think I've seen better on Youtube, though. This is a picture of the house next door to the radio house. It looked prettier so I took a picture of it. I do miss that people in Utah do not put up a

ny where near as many lights as people do in Texas. It guess it is harder when your yard and house get covered in snow to put lights up.

David and I decided to buy a fake Christmas tree this year. For only $20 I think it looks pretty good! Growing up, we always had just a fake tree. Plus when I lived at King Henry, we had a possessed tree that fell over about a million times (breaking all of my roommate Allison's ornaments in the process) so I decided that I am just a fake tree kind of person. We had some extra lights so we put them around the TV area. Hanging up is my stocking that I grew up with and then the stockings David and I bought last Christmas. I decided I am going to make David a stocking that matches the one I grew up with so we will have one more stocking hanging.

Here we are in front of our tree. The box said it was a 6 foot tree. In case you don't know David, he is not six feet tall. Guess the box lied.

And here we are taking a picture right before leaving for church.

On a side note, moments after this picture was taken, and moments before leaving the house for church, I decided to blow out the candles we had been burning. I then decided that it would be a good idea to grab a knife and stab at the wax, pushing it down the side of the candle (so that it would fall in the wax and melt). At the time this seemed like a good idea. Why does it always happen that way? Next thing I know, I am screaming as hot, red wax flies out of the candle and down the front of my skirt. What was I thinking? Luckily the wax did come out in the wash but I would have to recommend not stabbing hot wax with butter knifes.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!! I cannot wait!!

The Big Move

2009-12-03T18:51:00.000-08:00

On November 20th, David and I FINALLY moved in to our new apartment. We ended up not moving in to the smoky apartment because management found other problems with the place. It was probably for the best. The apartment we did move in to, though, smelled like curry so we bought a ton of Glade Apple Cinnamon candles (one for every room/bathroom) and they are working great so far. I was a little worried about the move because it was going to be just me, David, and his dad to move everything. David's boss let him borrow his company truck around 4 to pick up our couch, love seat, and chair. I ran to the apartment to sign the lease and get the key before David arrived. Work was crazy that day so I had to run back to work after giving the key to David and his dad. When I got off at 5, I was worried that we would be moving stuff back and forth from the storage unit all night. Oh how I overestimated the amount of stuff David and I own. It took ONE trip. That's it. It all fit into David's dad's van and his brother's suburban that we borrowed.

I must say it feels so nice to finally be back in our own place after living with relatives for the past 7 months. We are so so grateful to my grandparents and David's aunt and uncle for letti

ng us live with them, but it just feels so much better to have our own place.

Warning: apartment is a work in progress. No judging. These pictures were taken the night we moved in, before we unpacked everything, and before we bought more furniture. And they are in a random order because I am still blog illiterate.

Here is a picture of the second bedroom. This will be the last room in the house to work on. Two weeks later and it still has just a chair and our old T.V.

Here is the front room. You can see the mess on the floor. Of course before unpacking anything else we made sure to get the T.V. set up.

Here is our bedroom. We will be sleeping on the air mattress for quite some time. A real mattress was last on our list of furniture - they are so expensive!

Here is the walk-in closet. Love it! Haven't had a walk-in closet in forever!

And last, the living room. My leg looks like I chopped it off at the knee and placed it on my lap.

So there you go! These are just the "before" pics. I will post the "after" pics after we decorate some more. I have to say, until we moved in, I had never actually been to Ikea. Neither had David. And now I am ashamed to admit that David and I had Ikea meatballs three times in the span of a week and a half. But hey - the coffee table above was only forty bucks! Gotta love it!

More Random Thoughts

2009-11-13T21:27:00.000-08:00

1. David and I move in to our apartment in less than a week...FINALLY!

2. They switched us apartments. Apparently, the one we were going to move in to is still having problems. I guess the plumbing is all messed up so they had to cut a ton of holes in the walls, plus the carpets are dirty, plus it still smells. David and I viewed the apartment we will move in to and it is clean as a whistle. I was panicky and nervous at first when they moved us (Dynes trait), but it is for the best.

3. I had a very long day at work today (11 hours) so David rented me a chick flick to make me feel better. I still hadn't seen The Proposal so he rented it. Ummm....typically I love any chick flick, but I do not think this one will be making it in to my movie collection. Sorry to anyone who like it. :)

4. For the past few days I have been obsessively googling DIY fabric headboards. And I WILL be making one like this once we move in to our apartment. And the girl made it for only $38!! I am very excited. And now that I have publicly announced that I will be making one, that means I really have to. Although I will probably enlist my old roommate Courtney's help. She is the craftiest (is that word?) person I know. Thanks ahead Courtney!! :)

Random Tidbits

2009-11-09T18:30:00.000-08:00

11 DAYS AND COUNTING! David and I will be moving in to our apartment in eleven days. I cannot wait to move out! I am super grateful that my grandparents have let us stay with them, but we are ready for our own place. We even went out and bought a couch set (couch, love seat, and chair) from RC Willey last week. How exciting!! Our first furniture together! Here is a picture of the apartment complex - we love it!!

Below is the picture of our actual apartment/actual garage! But bad news - the apartment complex called us last week. We were supposed to move in on the 14th, but they had to move us back to the 20th due to some "serious damages" to our apartment. Smoking is against the rules at this complex, however, our former tenant did not seem to know this. They smoked. Yuck! So our apartment wanted an extra week to repaint all the walls and work to get rid of the smoke smell. I am just crossing my fingers and praying that they get the smell out. Otherwise I don't know what we'll do.. we really want to live at this place and ours is the only open apartment until after January!!! Cross your fingers with me!!

On Halloween morning, David and I went to the Provo Temple and you will never guess who was there with us....Donny Osmond! That's right - Donny Osmond from Dancing With the Stars. I had to fight back the urge to go up to him and say, "Great job dancing Donny!" Something about reality T.V. shows makes you feel like you really know the celebrities. After watching him on Dancing with the Stars for the past three months, I really felt like I knew him. Of course, I did not say anything. I'm sure I would have just embarrassed myself - but hey it was exciting to be in the same room as the rich and famous!

Plastic Blinds Are Not Okay

2009-10-17T09:09:00.000-07:00

Why do apartments think it is okay to place these hideous, plastic, cheap blinds in front of sliding glass doors? Have they never heard of a thing called curtains - made of fabric? Or better yet, have they never thought to just have a door out to the balcony rather than a sliding glass door? David and I started apartment hunting last Saturday. All the apartments, except one, had these ugly plastic blinds. I hate these blinds. We had them at Alpine Village and by the time we moved out, half of them had fallen off. And don't even get me started on the sound they make when you try to slide them open. I cringe at that sound. Luckily, for David and I, our application was approved (after a horrible three day wait - (how will I ever buy a house and have to wait a month)) and we got the apartment we wanted! The apartment that chose to use a door as the way out to the back patio rather than these hideous, plastic blinds. Don't worry - pics to come on the new apartment. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!! (sadly, we can't move in until November 14th; the countdown has begun!)

Fall Makes Me Happy

2009-10-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is the tree I park directly in front of every morning for work. I love it. It is so beautiful. Yesterday I was driving to the bank for work - the weather was perfect, absolutely perfect, and trees everywhere were turning red. I love the fall. I hate to admit it - but Utah has the best falls.

I Don't Feel Like 23...

2009-10-04T09:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I turned 23 on September 15th. I don't know if anyone feels this way, but I feel like I stopped aging once I hit 21. I still have to stop myself from saying I am 21 - I am 23! Crazy! I'm pretty sure I still look like a high schooler! For my birthday, David took me to dinner at Tucanos. We LOVE Tucanos - plus the free meal for your birthday isn't bad either. After stuffing our selves with cheesy mashed potatoes and every kind of meat imaginable, David told me we were going to go get dessert. He did not tell me where we were going at first, and we ended up at the apartment of my old roommate - Courtney! Courtney had baked the most delicious Boston cream pie (from scratch!) and invited over all of our good friends - Natalie, Kate, and Michelle! It was so good to see them! It really meant a lot to me that they all still remembered my birthday. It was a lot of fun and the cream pie was DELICIOUS! Thank you everyone!

David's parents invited David and I over the Monday before my birthday to have a mini celebration. What is a birthday with the Driggs without a yummy funfetti cake?!! I love David's family and enjoyed spending a night with them to celebrate my birthday.

For my birthday, David gave me two tickets to the Killers Concert on September 26th. So that Saturday after the BYU game, we headed up to the E-Center in Salt Lake City for the concert. The concert was SO good! I will say that the opening band was a little lame. It was this rock/mariachi band. The whole band was dressed like the Three Amigos. The lead singer was some bald white guy singing Mariachi music. It was strange. But then the Killers came out and we loved the rest of the concert!

Here they are singing. The lead singer, Brandon, sounded SO GOOD live! He was amazing! Plus he is Mormon - gotta love that!

David was super thoughtful and bought us these Killers t-shirts for my birthday for us to wear to the concert.

The stage had those huge screens in the back that would change colors and show video clips and different things. It was a very good show - and of course they sang all of their best songs - I really liked their performance of "Smile Like You Mean It" and "Spaceman". David of course loved "When You Were Young".

At the end of their encore performance they had all these sparks come down from the top of the stage. Then they had balls of fire explode at the back of the stage. It was really cool! Thank you David for such a great birthday gift!

And the winner is...

2009-09-21T21:07:00.000-07:00

Last August, when David and I moved into our first apartment, we decided to have a shampoo bottle contest. We wanted to see who went through more bottles of shampoo in a year - me or David. The results: Well, I lost count back in May when I was on bottle 6. David is STILL using the same bottle that we purchased way back in August 2008. How sad is that. I think I ended up using nine or something like that. Life is so much cheaper as a boy. That's all I have to say.

FINALLY a new camera

2009-09-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

I will finally have no more excuses for not updating my blog with more pictures. David and I decided last week to use my credit card reward points to get us a new camera. My camera was a giant brick that I have had since my senior year of high school, and we lost David's camera at the beginning of the summer (but it wasn't that great of a camera anyway so we didn't really care). Here is the camera we got COMPLETELY FREE! Yay! Two years of racking up credit card points and finally the reward program paid off!

P.S. Why is that my hair is always two colors? Stupid roots. I promise they don't look that bad in person. :)

It's a New Car!

2009-09-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

For anyone who doesn't know David very well, he says "It's a new car" just like the Price is Right guy ALL the time; so the title of this post is in honor of David.

Well, exciting news for the Driggs - we got a car on Monday! We were planning on buying a car in December when David was done with school, however after taking each of our cars in to the car shop twice, so four times in all in a two week span, and after spending over $500 on those two cars, we felt that now was as good a time as any to start car shopping.

Last Saturday, the 12th, we began our search for a car. We had already decided we wanted either a Toyota Corolla or a Honda Civic and had already done all of our online research on Kelly Blue Book, blah, blah, blah. FINALLY David agreed to let me actually go to a car dealership. We went to both the Honda dealership and the Toyota dealership here in Orem. Anyone else looking for a car in the future, we loved Kevin Burns - apparently he has been salesman of the month a bizillion times. His office was FULL of plaques and awards. After looking around on Saturday we went home to decide what we wanted to do.

Long story short, we were going to buy a 2006 Toyota Corolla that the Honda dealership had on their lot, but at the last minute they brought out a 2008 Honda Civic that had just come in so we took it!

Here is our new baby! We love it! I know its a pathetic dream but I have always always wanted a Honda Civic - you can blame my parents - they only drive Hondas. We love our new car and love driving it!

A view of the inside. Best feature - iPod hookup jack!

College Graduates...Almost!

2009-08-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

Well I thought I should give everyone a new life update on me and David. As most of you know, David and I were living in Salt Lake for the summer with his Aunt Tiff and Uncle Chuck. Fortunately, David was able to get an internship with a construction company in Salt Lake called Zwick Construction. Unfortunately, the internship was unpaid, which = we are poor. haha. Fortunately, he loved the internship and loved the company. And super fortunately, they just gave him a job offer! He graduates in December and Zwick wants him to come work for him! We are 99.99% sure we are going to take the job offer. He really liked the people he worked with, the company is great, and he would learn a lot. Also, the owner sat down and talked with him and said that he could see David growing with the company. They want to expand into California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, etc. and David could help them with that eventually. And we all know David would just LOVE to live in California. We are so grateful that David was able to do this internship.

But for now David just has to focus on his last 5 classes (that is if he can get his mind off of college football) for the next three and a half months and then he can officially join me as a college graduate!

Now on to my life. In July I decided I wanted to be done working with CFO Solutions. They are a great company, but I was ready for steady hours, one location, and most importantly a steady paycheck. (Yeah, that whole month during the summer without a single paycheck was not fun at all). So I looked around for jobs and found a great one - thank you craigslist! The company is a small private equity firm that invests in real estate/development companies. I started at the very beginning of August - so I am about to start my fourth week with them. The job is in Orem so before I was driving down from Salt Lake. Now that we are back in Orem, I am about three minutes from work, which is really nice. Since I don't have to be in until 9:00 am, I get a pretty good nights sleep each night. The company is great and they are letting me be a lot more involved in the accounting than I was at my previous job. I even have my own little office!

For the semester, David and I are living in my grandma and grandpa's basement in Orem - thank you grandma and grandpa! We really, really, really can't wait to get our own apartment but that will just have to wait until December. For now we are just trying to save up for our many large purchases we will be making in December - new car, couches, bed, bedroom furniture, washer/dryer, etc. We are super excited to be done with college in three months and to both be working, contributing members of society! Yay!

Day at Lagoon

2009-08-17T15:34:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, David's Uncle Chuck and Aunt Tiff invited us to go to Lagoon with their three kids, a family friend, and Daniel and Heather. We headed out Saturday afternoon with perfect weather. A random cold front came in so it was only about 75 degrees outside. It was perfect! Now I have to be honest and admit that I am not a rollercoaster person. Growing up my parents never took us to amusement parks so I don't think I even rode my first rollercoaster until I was in high school. Well, after conquering Disneyland and riding every big ride there, I knew I could suck it up and be brave. Besides, David loves rollercoasters and I did not want to let him down. So I went to Lagoon telling myself over and over that rollercoasters are fun. I like rollercoasters. They aren't scary.

We started out the trip by riding a very small ride with David's three cousins. Then we rode a few other rides and finally stopped to watch people riding the SkyCoaster. For those who don't know what that is here is a picture of one below:

To ride the SkyCoaster, two to three people put on these funny suits. Then you both get hooked in from your back and hoisted into the sky so that you are on your stomach. You start below that big arch and are pulled up diagonally to the top of the tall, straight tower. Once you are at the top - which is over 100 feet high - one person has to pull a cord to release you. After a 65 foot free fall, the cords catch and you fly back and forth through the air like a superman flying in the air. Just watching people do this made my stomach turn. Well, Chuck asked if David, Daniel, Heather and I wanted to do it and of course David immediately said yes. Well I had already decided that I was going to be brave that day so I said yes, too. Here is a picture of what you look like as you are being hoisted up to the top.

Chuck and his son Christian went on the SkyCoaster first. Let me remind you that Christian is 8 years old! That boy has guts! He didn't even freak out before or anything. Since the SkyCoaster has two towers, you can do two groups at once. So Daniel and Heather were on one side and David and I on the other. This was the scariest, most amazing, most thrilling thing I have ever done in my life. While David and I were getting hooked up, I started to get really scared. I mean really scared. They starting pulling us to the top and I had to close my eyes so I wouldn't freak out. We just kept going higher and higher and higher. Finally at the top a girl got on the microphone and said, "Ready! Pull your cord!"

David immediately pulled the cord and we dropped toward the earth. We free fell for about 65 feet - in which I screamed the whole time. As you are dropping you mind just goes crazy - you think what on earth am I doing to myself! I am going to smash into the ground! This is the end! And then suddenly the cord catches and you swing across the earth. You can suddenly breath again. You can stop screaming and just enjoy what you just did. It was such a rush! We loved it! David told me he was so proud of me for going on the ride! I'm so proud of me for doing it - I never do things like this!

So there you go, I conquered Lagoon. I later even rode a huge rollercoaster with two upside down flips and everything! Go me! If you ever get a chance to ride a SkyCoaster you should do it. It is amazing! You feel every emotion in a matter of seconds - you go from being absolutely terrifed to feeling like you can do anything in the world. Thank you Chuck and Tiff for such a fun day!

Pioneer Day

2009-07-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

Friday, July 24th, was Pioneer Day in Utah. I love that Utah has a Pioneer Day because it is one extra holiday for those of us living in Utah. David was able to have the day off, so we had all day to lounge around the house and relax. We didn't really do much during the day other than watch movies - Cool Runnings, play games (David played with Legos forever in the afternoon), and read books. It was nice to have a day to relax. Then at night we were invited to go to the Salt Lake Bees Baseball game with my old roommate, Courtney; her boyfriend, Spencer; her brothers, Alex and Ryan; Alex's girlfriend, Morgan; and one of Ryan's friends. David and I had never been to a Salt Lake Bees game - they are just a minor league team - Utah doesn't have a major league team.

Before the game, we went out to dinner with Spencer and Courtney to a well known restaurant in the area called The Pie. It is a little pizza place right near the University of Utah campus. They have really good pizza. The best part was, the workers told us that since we had to wait so long for our pizza, we got a free pizza! We had the barbeque chicken pizza, which was delicious!

After dinner we headed to the game. We just bought general admission tickets, so we sat just behind the outfield on blankets. I actually enjoyed sitting out on blankets better than sitting in seats - probably because I find baseball boring so getting to lay down made it better. The opposing team cancelled the game due to illness so instead the Salt Lake Bees held a homerun derby and then an 18 and under all star game. The home run derby was fun. David brought his glove since we were behind the outfield and attempted to catch a few of the home runs. The winner of the derby was a 16 year old high school student from Las Vegas. He hit so many home runs. He was really good! And only 16! He beat all the Bees players that were in the home run derby! Apparently he is the best hitter in high school in the world right now; rumor has it, the boy hit a 560 foot home run in Florida.

The all star game was pretty lame - no one was really watching. We waited through it though for the best part of the night - Pioneer Day Fireworks! After the all star game, they let everyone go down on the field. We got to lay our blanket out in the outfield and watch the fireworks. It was so cool because we were really close to the fireworks. In fact, we could feel ashes falling on us during the show. The show was really good. I would even say it was the best fireworks show I have ever been to. They had a lot of cool fireworks. It was a lot of fun to get to go out with Courtney and her brothers and Spencer. We had a really good Pioneer Day. It will be sad when one day we don't live in Utah and will have to work through the 24th of July. :( Until then, Happy Pioneer Day!

Manti Miracle Pageant

2009-07-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

The very last weekend in June, David and I decided we wanted to go to the Miracle Pageant down in Manti, UT. Since my mom was in town we invited her. We also invited David's sisters and mom as well as Adam and Carlee. This was David, Carlee, and David's mom's first time to go to the pageant. I hadn't been in about ten years so I really didn't remember much of the pageant. David, his sisters - Kathryn and Kelli, his mom - Lauri, and I all drove down early to save seat for us. Here is when we first arrived. It was really, really bright outside. How gorgeous is the Manti Temple in the background!

After we claimed our spot at the pageant, we walked down Main Street in Manti to find some dinner. Here we are eating our hot dogs and hamburgers in the grass. And of course David is making a face. :)

David and his sisters, waiting for the pageant to start.
David and I in front of the Manti Temple. I forgot how big the Manti Temple is! It really was so gorgeous.

Everyone at the pageant - minus Adam who took the picture and minus Jack who was running around pulling grass up.

One last shot of the temple in the sunlight.

The temple at night time - still waiting for the pageant to start.

For those who have never been, the Manti Pageant is a play that all the Mormons put on down in Manti. The play is performed right in front of the temple, on the grassy hill just below the temple. The play is about how the LDS church began and the early church members' journey across the plains on their way to Utah. The play was good. There were the occasional cheesy lines - "the arrow...so swift" (as one guy said after he was shot by an arrow, right before he died) - but overall I enjoyed the play. The end was really great with music playing from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The only drawback to the pageant was how late it was. The pageant didn't even start until after 9:30 pm. It ended around 11:15 pm and then we had to drive back to Provo. After dropping David's sisters and mom off at their house, David and I finally got to my grandma's house around 2:15 am. I was so tired the next day. I hate staying up late. Marriage is so nice - David and I go to bed at 10 pm. We almost never stay up past midnight - not even on the weekends. We enjoyed it but probably won't be seeing it again in the near future. I think I can wait another ten years or so before I go back. :)

Attack of the Birds

2009-06-24T06:52:00.001-07:00

On Monday morning, I decided to go for a long power walk down to the SugarHouse Park. It was beautiful and sunny outside. As I was walking through the park, I passed a tree with two birds in it. Suddenly, the birds started diving at me. One dove about a foot in front of me and the other started diving at my back. I am positive that if I had not started running, the one behind me would have ran into my back. Not to mention, they were scary black birds like the ones above. For the rest of my "walk" I was terrified that any of the other birds I saw were going to attack me, too. I guess I can now add "birds" to the very long list of animals that scare me. On a happier note, I walked 4 miles that morning. Go me!

Word to the Wise

2009-06-09T19:01:00.000-07:00

When Papa Murphy's Pizza says "for best results cook one pizza at a time", they really do mean it. David and I got pizzas for us and David's cousins the other night and me being the impatient person I am, ignored Papa Murphy's instructions and put one pizza on the middle rack and one on the top rack. Let's just say that the pizza on the top rack cooked in like four minutes. And by cooked, I mean the top of it burned and the bottom was still complete dough. Oops. Guess next time I'll follow the instructions more closely.

David's Third Birthday Celebration...

2009-06-03T14:36:00.000-07:00

As I said before, we really celebrated David's birthday the WHOLE weekend. For David's birthday I had given him a baseball glove as well as a coupon for breakfast at the Blue Plate Diner in Salt Lake. The Diner is just down the street from his Aunt's house. It is always full of people and has a sign that says it was voted the "Best Breakfast in Utah". So Monday morning, Daniel, Heather, David, me, Kathryn, and Kelli all woke up and had breakfast at the diner. I thought the food was good but nothing super amazing. David got a black bean breakfast burrito with sausage that he really liked. Just as always, the diner was packed with people. There was even a man sitting at the table behind us with a pet parrot on his shoulder the whole time.

After breakfast we hung out back at the house for a while. We all went on the trampoline and played some basketball. This mainly consisted of David and Daniel trying to beat each other in coming up with the craziest ways to dunk the basketball on the trampoline. Next we decided to go hike up Ensign Peak. It is located just north of the Salt Lake Temple and the capitol building. Thankfully, it was a beautiful day! The weather forecast predicted rain, but it was sunny and warm and beautiful. Here are some pictures from the short hike:

The hike was only about a mile in all so not too difficult. I had only ever hiked to the smaller lookout point, but this time we hiked the whole way up to the top point of Ensign Peak. Word of advice - don't wear flip flops. The hike wasn't that bad but it was steep enough that I got blisters on my toes from holding on to my flip flops so they wouldn't fall off. All of David's siblings headed home after the hike so David and I decided to go to the Salt Lake Country Club for a swim. This was our first swim of the season. haha. We miss our days at King Henry - lying out at the pool every single Saturday. It was nice to lay out at the pool. We even got to order sandwiches and drinks by the pool. After being at the pool for a couple of hours we went home and played some catch with David's new glove. That was about the end of David's Birthday celebrations. Here is a picture of us- tired and exhausted from a day in the sun:

It was a great birthday celebration. I can't believe David is 25 years old! He is such an amazing guy. He always makes me laugh and always makes me feel so special. I love him so much! Happy Birthday David!

David's Birthday Celebration Continued...

2009-06-03T14:27:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, May 24th, we invited all of David's family to come up to Salt Lake. Since his cousins were out of town and since Monday was Memorial Day, we had Daniel, Heather, Kathryn, and Kelli sleep over. Everyone came up in the evening. Just as David wanted, rather than cake for his birthday, I made hot fudge peanut butter brownie sundaes. We sang Happy Birthday and then opened presents. (Sorry I don't have any pictures. I try to but then forget. His mom has some so maybe I'll post some later when I get them from her).

Over the past few months David kept saying he wanted a baseball glove. Of course, he told me that I wasn't allowed to buy it myself because I know nothing about baseball. Very true. I must say, though, I was very proud of the glove I picked out. It was a super nice glove but I bought at this store that sells broken in gloves so it is already broken in for him. (Apparently that is a good thing.) Also, since it was broken in I got it at a much better price than if I bought it new. Go me! Here is David with his glove. When he opened it, he was so surprised! He didn't think I was going to get him a glove. He loved it, though! Yay!

After opening presents, the whole family played a game of Clue. Congratulations to Kathryn and Kelli - the winning team. David's parents left after that to go back home. We all went down to the basketball court and played some Knockout. I completely suck at Knockout but it was a lot of fun. Kathryn was very impressive and made it to the final two players almost every single round. After playing around for a while, we all went and played Rock Band/Guitar Hero for a while. We ended up staying up until like 1 am. How sad is it that that is the latest I have stayed up in a really long time? I am usually in bed at 10 pm - even on weekends! It was a lot of fun to have everyone over to celebrate David's birthday. Thanks Driggs Family!!

David's 25th Birthday Weekend

2009-06-03T14:08:00.000-07:00

David's birthday was on May 26th. We decided to celebrate his birthday all weekend long, though, since he would be working on his actual birthday. It began on Saturday, May 23rd. David's Aunt and Uncle and cousins left that day to go to France for the week. That meant David and I got the whole house to ourselves! To begin David's birthday celebration we decided to go to a dinner and movie. We haven't gone out on a date in so long it feels like so we were both excited.

Before we left, I gave David his first birthday present. Let me begin by telling you that a week ago or so, David informed me that for my birthday we could go to the Killers concert that was coming to Salt Lake. I'm not sure if it is really a present for me or for him. haha. Either way is fine. So I thought since we want to go to the concert, and David doesn't have very many Killers songs, I bought him a bunch of Killers songs on iTunes and burned him a Killers Mix CD.

We decided to go see "Terminator Salvation." David was dying to see it; however, he read some review before we went and was disappointed that it got bad reviews. This may have helped us, though, because we both like the movie. I thought it was good. I jumped a million times during it. It wasn't absolutely amazing, but I didn't feel as though I had wasted my money.

After the movie, we used a gift card David's Aunt and Uncle gave us and went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. I hadn't been there since high school. It was so delicious. Sadly, by the time my meal came out, I was stuffed from our calamari and bread that I barely had two bites. We did take home a piece of cheesecake. It was the Chocolate Pecan Turtle something cheesecake and it was AMAZING. I highly recommend it. When we got home we decided to watch "Jurassic Park 2" in the theater room. David fell asleep, though, and I got scared from watching it so I turned it off after about 45 minutes and went to bed. Let me tell you - it gets scary being in a giant house with tons of windows watching people get eaten by dinosaurs all by yourself. So that was the end of David's birthday celebration #1.

Life Update

2009-05-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

Sorry it has been a while since I have given a blog update so here is a list of what has happened in my life the past few weeks:

1. Graduated BYU!!!

1a. Got to walk with Daniel, Heather, Danny Brown, and David (although David will officially be done in December)!!

2. Family and friends visited Utah - Thanks mom and dad & Alicia and Jeff!

3. Finally saw Taken, which was amazing just as everyone said.

4. David was offered an internship with Zwick Construction in Salt Lake.

5. Moved out of mine and David's very first apartment and in to grandma's basement for a week.

6. Worked my last day ever at the ASB mailroom. sad. :(

7. Moved to Salt Lake City to live with David's Aunt Tiff and Uncle Chuck all summer.

8. Enjoying sleeping in everyday. Don't worry I only sleep until 8:30 - but that is 2 extra hours from the past three years.

That is about it. As I said above, David and I will be living with his Aunt and Uncle all summer up in Salt Lake. It is great because his job is only about ten minutes away and all my clients with my accounting job are in Park City and Salt Lake so I am a lot closer to work, too. It is weird being done with BYU but I am definitely enjoying it. Life is so less stressful. I will try to give more updates now that I don't have any excuses. :)

I'm Done.

2009-04-21T16:21:00.000-07:00

Well, after working on my last project of my entire BYU experience for over 8 hours, I'm done. I emailed my project in and that was it. No more homework, no more tests, no more lectures, no more finals. I'm done. Finally!

This is for David

2009-04-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

So David constantly tells me after things happen, "You should make a blog post about that." Well, we all know that my blogging skills are horrible so I always respond to him that he should post a blog. He claims that blogging is a "girl" thing and that I have to do it.

So on Saturday David and I witnessed a very scary event and of course he told me I should make a blog post about it. So here you go David. This is for you. (I'm mainly doing this because I am bored at work and avoiding doing my final project for one of my classes - my last assignment EVER!)

David and I were heading to the Provo mall on Saturday around noon. We pulled up to Center Street and were about to make a right turn onto the street. To our left there was a garage sale going on. All of a sudden I hear David yell, "Kids! Look out!" Coming down Center Street was a Lexus SUV. At the same time a mom on a bike with a kid in the back and three more children on bikes began to cross the street. Two of the kids jetted ahead of the mother. It was like everything became slow motion. The SUV did not slow down and neither did the children. It was as if neither of them saw each other coming. The SUV zoomed past them as one of the little boys, about 7 or 8 years old, completely ran into the back of the SUV as it drove by. He did a 360 on his bike, flew into the air, and landed on the street, as the seat on his bike popped off and flew into the air. The little boy got up crying and screaming and ran to his mom. David jumped out of the car and pulled the bike out of the street as well as the bike the mother was on that had a small child in it. The little boy seemed okay, just scared more than anything. It was so terrifying. David and I could not stop thinking about it the rest of the afternoon. We both thought the SUV was just going to plow into those children and completely run them over. Luckily, the boy seemed fine and we're sure he will be okay. Crazy way to start your Saturday afternoon.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna

2009-04-20T07:50:00.000-07:00

I know this is a little late, but I wanted to post a video for my family and friends not in Utah to see. The last weekend in March, me, David, Courtney, Natalie, Kate, Michelle, and Jared went to the Hare Krishna Festival of Colors down in Spanish Fork, Utah. They hold the festival every year to celebrate spring. They said that last year they had over 10,000 people in attendance. The festival is held at the beautiful Hare Krishna temple. You can eat India food, pet llamas (which I was terrified of doing), dance, shop for pretty scarves and things, etc. Around 4:30 everyone gathers onto the hillside in front of the temple. They light this creepy witch on fire and then do a count down and have everyone throw handfuls of colored chalk into the air. We of course forgot to wait for the countdown and threw most of our bags of chalk before then but here is a video of the countdown and the craziness that occurred:

When everyone threw the chalk into the air, you could not breathe. It was crazy! By the end we were all covered in chalk. We ran to the car and luckily found some toilet paper in the back of David's car. This is probably too much information, but our snot was dark purple! haha. Also, I had pink highlights in my hair for the following three weeks. Just now are the pink highlights FINALLY gone! It was so much fun! We are really glad we went. Here are a few pictures of the event:

Graduation Decisions

2009-04-02T07:44:00.000-07:00

I am possibly the most fickle person I know. I jump into things without really thinking about it and then later change my mind and then later change it again. So after much thinking and changing of minds, David and I decided that since I will be in Provo all summer, I may as well take some classes so that I can work my mailroom job full time. I have worked this job for almost three years and was really sad to have to quit at the end of April. Then my boss pointed out that if I take just 3 credits, I could still work.

So I spoke to my college advisement counselor and had her push back my official graduation to August. I will still be walking in April I just won't be getting my diploma until August. Then came the decision of what to take. I decided on:

1. Food Preparation in the Home - watch out family. I will become the best cook of us all.

2. Social Dance - David felt the need to inform me that in this class it is "not an easy A, Karin". They do actually grade you on your dancing. Thank you David. And for that comment I am making him come to class and be my dancing partner. (seeing as he has taken this class like 4 times or something) And yes, I will be the Julianne Hough of BYU's beginning social dance class.

3. Jogging - This will really help keep me motivated for that half marathon in August. (Sadly David and I have not run in like two weeks because it has been SNOWING! Yes, it is April. Yes, it is freezing outside.)

I am excited for my classes. I have not taken a "fun" class in the past two years - unless you count the fact that I am a big fat nerd and loved both business law and accounting 440.

I can't believe that by August David and I will both be graduated and moving and starting real jobs!! Wish us luck!

Rex Lee Run

2009-03-19T15:25:00.000-07:00

About three weeks ago, when spring started to come and it was FINALLY "warm" and sunny outside, David and I decided to start jogging together after school and work. We then decided to sign up for the Rex Lee 5k Run. For those who don't know, Rex Lee was a former president of BYU. He died of cancer about 14 years ago, and every year since then BYU sponsors a 5k and 10k race in his honor, with all proceeds going to cancer research. Last year I randomly decided to sign up for the 5k, even though I was completely out of shape and had not run in like five years. Needless to say I ran it (and by ran it I mean mostly walked it) in a very slow, very embarrassing 45 minutes. So this year, with David as my trainer, I had a goal of beating my time. Even if I did it in 44 minutes, we would be happy.

This is David preparing for the race.

Here I am stretching before we head out. It was very early and very cold.

And here David is back at the apartment after the race. He ran it in.......25 minutes! Go David! I was so proud of him.

And here is me after the race. Go #220! I ran the race in......drumroll please....36 minutes! Yay go me!

As a celebration of both of us beating our goals, we had a wonderful meal at Denny's for breakfast afterwards. I must say it felt really good to get up early, go for a run, and then have breakfast. All before ten a.m. Wow! Our next goal: Provo Canyon Half Marathon - August 9th. We'll see how that goes.

Our Valentine's Day continued...

2009-02-16T12:53:00.000-08:00

David and I decided that for Valentine's Day rather than giving each other gifts we just want to go to a fancy dinner. I LOVE going to nice restaurants! David made the reservations so that it would be a surprise for me where we were going.

We drove up to Salt Lake and arrived at The Roof Restaurant on the top floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, right next to the Salt Lake City Temple. The food was alright, but the view was AMAZING! We were seated right across from the temple - you can see it in the background of the picture above. It was so gorgeous! There was also a pianist in the restaurant playing romantic songs in the background the whole time.

Probably the best part about the night was all the many, many delicious desserts they had. Yes, we shared about five desserts. We had flan, chocolate mousse, a peach crepe, chocolate cake with whipped cream, and chocolate covered strawberries! Needless to say, I was completely stuffed by the time we were done.

Here we are with the beautiful Salt Lake City Temple behind us. Just think only eight months ago we were there getting married!

After dinner we decided to wander around the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and have a mini photo shoot. Here are just a few of the many pictures we took together. That is David across the way. The Joseph Smith Memorial Building used to be a really fancy hotel in the early 20th century. It is beautiful inside! It has so much intricate detail on everything.

That is me sitting in the chair on the left.

David posing.

A final view of what the temple looked like from our table in the restaurant.

All in all it was a great first Valentine's Day as a married couple. Even if we had to celebrate it a week early. I love you David!

Our Valentine's Day

2009-02-16T12:41:00.000-08:00

Since David was going to be out of town on the real Valentine's Day, we decided to celebrate a week early on February 7th. I decided that since David usually always cooks me breakfast on the weekends, I wanted to cook breakfast for him on Valentine's Day. David always gets up super early so this required me to get up REALLY early. I made a delicious breakfast of the foods below. I thought these juice bottles were SO cute! You can't really tell in the picture but they are mini Simply Orange and Simply Lemonade bottles. I didn't even know they made individual, mini sized ones!

These are the bottoms of my cinnamon rolls. They were a "little" burnt so I sliced them all off. And sad to say that pan is now ruined. I washed it and the burnt circles are still there.

But don't worry, the other part of the cinnamon rolls were delicious! By the time I took the picture we had already eaten half of them!

And for the main course I made a delicious meal of potatoes, eggs, cheese, sausage, green and red peppers, and onions. Now I would love to say I thought it up myself and made the whole thing from scratch but I am going to have to thank the one and only Jimmy Dean. It was delicious. Highly recommended.

After breakfast David had to go to campus to prepare for his construction competition, which left me to lounge around the house for the entire afternoon. I cleaned, did some homework, and then watched hours upon hours of E! True Hollywood Story - including one about the Pussy Cat Dolls and one about Beyonce/Destiny's Child. Finally David came home in the evening and we got ready for our night out!