Spring Surprises!

Although it is only 42 here today, it still is beginning to look a lot like Spring in our backyard. To my surprise, there are some fun little blue flowers popping up in our flower bed that we thought we had pulled everything out of. Mat told me a few days ago that we had some cute blue flowers in our backyard, but I just assumed they were weeds! Pretty fun to have some flowers this soon and with it being still so chilly! I can't wait for it to get warmer and warmer every week.

Tonight is game night at Alana's and I am so excited! I made some delicious Oatmeal Carmelitas that I found on the Pillsbury website. Don't tell anyone, but I didn't buy Smucker's caramel sauce. OH the shame. Mat and I had a taste test after lunch and they are pretty tasty. All the gamers are supposed to bring something different and I signed us up for dessert. Hope everyone else likes them! We'll also bring a game or two, but who knows what we'll end up playing.

Tomorrow is our dreaded run to the grocery store. We did get cleaning out of the way today, so we won't have to worry about that tomorrow. I'm hoping we can get to the store and home and then just sit around watching some fun movies. I'm sure there are some wedding plans we need to work on, but I kind of feel like taking the weekend off!

Yoga

On a typical Wednesday, I love yoga class. I feel like it is good for me to do all the stretching, but at the same time it isn't as hard as my other workout days and frankly, I really don't like working out. Yesterday, I would have preferred to just stay home or even do cardio and weights.

First, I get to the Y and as I'm walking down the stairs, I start to feel the intense humidity sweeping over me. Normally, it isn't so bad, but I felt like the pool exploded into the atmosphere and was slowly drenching my body with sweat. I get into the yoga room where it is just as bad and start setting up our things. Then, some girl who weighs between 95-100 pounds sits right next to us. I wanted to pick her up and throw her out of the room, yelling that the only people allowed to be smaller than me in this class are geriatric! But I kept my cool.

We start the class and instantly my hands and feet start producing mass quantities of sweat. If you've ever tried yoga, you must realize how difficult it is to hold a pose when your hands and feet are slowly sliding down the mat. (Just thinking about this makes my hands pool up with sweat) The rest of the class I struggled with my sweaty feet and hands until finally it was over. Then, I didn't even get to do the corpse pose (my favorite)! At least it was only 45 minutes this week and not the full hour. Fine by me!

Some Things Don't Make Sense

I now have cable in my office at work. Why, you ask? I don't know. I have no reason for cable in my office and don't know why the bosses decided to wire everyone's office for cable. It's not like I'm going to start watching My Super Sweet 16 for meeting planning ideas. Some of the offices are getting cable and TVs so that they can monitor the legislative session. That makes sense, but why me? Some things can't be explained.

Another thing that doesn't make sense is why Mat continues to honk at squirrels in the road. I love that man to death, but it just doesn't make sense to me. For those of you who don't know Boise, there are squirrels everywhere in the neighborhood north of downtown (where we used to live) and in the are we live in now (south of downtown). They are actually all over the place. They are cute and I could kiss one if they would let me. He tells me that he honks at them because he wants them to stay out of the street and if he continues to honk at them, they'll figure it out. But I keep telling him that it isn't the same squirrel over and over again and that other people aren't honking at the squirrels. It it the cutest thing I've ever seen. Although I think that about most everything he does.

Tonight we're off to yoga. I like to call it old people yoga because it is a group of retired folks and then Mat and I. We like it and the instructor, so we don't want to switch to another group. It just gets awkward when we go into the corpse pose, or savasana, some of them fall asleep and start to snore. It's hard to not laugh when people are snoring.

Yikes.

Is it possible to have a panic attack over your wedding invitations? I just sent them to my printer and fear that if I look at them again my eyes will either cross permanently or I will find a mistake. I'm just trying to breathe in and out. The phone just rang. How could my printer be calling so fast? That's because it wasn't him. Whoosh. Why is this so stressful?

Easter!

My family had a wonderful Easter Sunday! We had a delicious brunch and then all wanted to nap for the rest of the afternoon. I think we might have decided on our invitations and RSVP cards. Who would have thought this would have been such an ordeal? I really thought the wording would come so easily, but I think we analyzed every single word. Now, we just need to give them a final look and then we're sending them off to the printer! I can't wait to get them back.

I put lotion on my very dry hands today when I got to work. Now they are sweaty and I can barely type. I really can't win!

Oink, Oink

One thing I love more than anything in the world is to eat food that is bad for me. I try not to do this except once or twice a week, especially in preparation for the wedding (after I'm married, who cares?). Tonight is the night for stuffing face. My sister is coming over and we'll get pizza and breadsticks and wings and enjoy every minute of it. I can almost taste the pepperonis right now.

It sounds like the entire weekend will be filled with some of my favorite things: pizza tonight, mac and cheese tomorrow night, yummy breakfast foods on Sunday morning...

I can just hear my stomach expanding to make room for all these goodies!

It Has Begun...

Every year, I get excited about March Madness. Not because I am such a huge basketball fan or anything (I don't even watch the games), but because it's free gambling! I get to pick out all my choices on who will win and then I could potentially win $10,000 on espn.com. Now that is what I call fun!

Salt Lake City Rocks!

So we're back and hopefully you looked at some of our fun pictures in the previous post. For some reason it just took me forever to put those up, so I didn't even do a wrap up of our weekend. So I'll back track to Saturday...

As soon as Mat got off work we headed to Salt Lake City. We made pretty good time and ended up getting to our hotel around 6ish. We were going to dinner with Jeff, Mat's cousin (a.k.a. Russell Crowe), and he came and picked us up. Dinner was at a delicious Mexican restaurant called Blue Iguana. It was quite tasty. We had some Encurtitas for dinner that didn't taste like they had seafood in them. I had Enchiladas Verdes that had a green mole sauce that was interesting. It was made of pumpkin seeds, almonds and green chiles. Mat and Jeff both got tamales and liked those too. So it got good reviews all around.

After dinner we went to the very popular Sky Bar (at the top of our hotel) for a beer. It wasn't so popular when we were there, but as we were getting ready to leave it started to pick up. I think it is actually a happening spot.

Sunday morning we got up and headed to our first stop, IKEA. Two hours later, we were out of there and did find a few things for decorations there. We did go to a couple different malls and looked at all kinds of things. I found a couple cheap dresses that I bought with my birthday money I've been hoarding. They'll be perfect for the cruise. I think one of them is going to be my beach cover up!

That night we went to our friends' house, the Armstrong family. As I'm sure you saw from the picture, they are a good looking bunch of people! Sarah and I went to elementary school together and then attended Oklahoma State together, which is where she met Matt and I had the luxury of getting to know him also during my time there.

We had a lovely dinner that Sarah prepared for us and my favorite - margaritas! They could have just kept making me margaritas and I probably wouldn't have even noticed if they didn't make dinner, but they did. It was so fun to see the kids again, Sean and Gracie are growing like little weeds! They are both so fun and I loved hearing Sean talk. One of my favorites was he always would say "scuse me please" when he was trying to get your attention. Then it was time for the kids to hit the bath, so Matt got that job so Sarah and I could chat more. After the kids were tucked safely in bed, it was time for SingStar and American Idol!

OMG. This game was made for Sarah and I. Not only do we love karaoke, we are really good at it. I don't even really know why the guys played because they were just so bad at it. These games were so crazy. You sing into a microphone and then it registers your pitch and tone and timing and you get points based on that. So cool. Eventually, we had to go home, but I probably could have sung all night!

Monday morning we got up and headed to a couple kitchen stores before we met Sarah for lunch at Chipotle. Yum again! I think I gained a hundred pounds on this trip! Sean had school, so it was just Madison and Sarah that met us. After lunch we headed to trolley square and then hit the road home.

Now we're back and trying to get caught up on our weekend things we didn't do - like laundry. Ugh.

I wish we could visit more often - we always have such a great time. Thanks again to the Armstrongs and Jeff for showing us a wonderful time!

SLC 2008

I'll give a good wrap up later, but for now, enjoy some pictures from our trip to Salt Lake City this past weekend. We had a great time and wish we could go more often!

Did I mention we had dinner and drinks with Russell Crowe??

Duke the lap dog

Some of the most angelic voices I've ever heard

The prettiest St. Patty's Day Girl

Mom Sarah with Sean and Madison Grace

Two boys being silly

Bottle Time!

Someone is very serious about Sing Star

Hot Mama

Shop til We Drop!

It is Saturday morning and I'm off to get my hair cut before we head to Salt Lake City for a nice weekend of shopping! We have lots on our list to look for, including wedding favors, decorations, ties, shoes, plates, utensils...the list goes on! We're hoping that we can hit IKEA and find a lot of the stuff we are looking for and then maybe a couple malls to find the rest. The best part is that we get to see Mat's cousing and one of my oldest friends, Sarah! So I'll have lots to report on when we get back. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

100th POST!!!!

Drum rolls and confetti everywhere!! Not only is it my 100th post, but it is exactly 100 days until our wedding! Now that is something special.


Since this is such a special post, I feel that I should share this special story someone in my office told me about today: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23595533/. Just a little something to think about today.


I don't know what else to do for the 100th post. I feel like I should say thank you to my four readers, maybe five, and I hope to continue my blogging for years to come. So there you have it!

Thursday! But Rainy...

I love when it gets to Thursday because I feel like there is hardly any time left until the weekend. But this morning I woke up and it was all rainy. I don't know how much sun we'll be seeing today. I think it is supposed to be like this all weekend. BOO.

Not much to post this morning. More later today!!

It's Official

Not only am I addicted to reading other people's blogs, I have also discovered that I am not the funniest person in the world. Funniest? Most Funny? Whatever. I lose.

Interesting Web Sites

I found a Web site/blog that I think is interesting if you are looking to save money: Frugal Hacks. Not only does this site have loads of information on ways to save some money, they also have a million links to other people's blogs that are looking to save a buck. I am exaggerating when I say a million, but there might seriously be a couple hundred links.

I've also been enjoying this http://www.momadvice.com/blog/. I know I'm not a mom, but a lot of the site is based on organizing, cleaning and ways to make your life easier. I'm all for making things easier!

Check them out!

The Invasion

Not such a great movie. It wasn't too bad, but I wouldn't tell anyone to rush out and rent/buy it. We did have some tasty enchiladas off the Cooking Light Web site, but they were quite a bit of work. I still haven't found that fabulous enchilada recipe that I have been searching for. I'll just keep looking. Happy Tuesday to everyone!

It's Close!!

My dress is almost here! It is in the store in Salt Lake City and should be here by the end of the week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Weekend Recap

Monday morning is here. Ugh. I really did not want to get up this morning when it was still pitch black outside. It hasn't been dark when I've been waking up for a few weeks and now I'm back to bumbling around in the dark. I guess this won't last too much longer and then it will be officially Spring and we'll be done with this cold, icky weather.

It actually was nice enough yesterday that Mat and I ventured out to play disc golf. I feel like I'm basically horrible at this and I get nervous because there are a million other people and they are all good. So I feel like everyone is waiting on the slow one to finish. We didn't play the entire course - there are 20 holes - but it was fun just to get outside and especially at the end when the sun came out.

Friday night Mat and I headed to the gym, which is not really fun, but usually totally dead on Friday night, so way nicer when we don't have to wait on anyone and we kind of have the place to ourselves. Then we came home and prepared our homemade pizza! Mat made the crust earlier that day and then he rolled it out and put all the toppings on it. I basically just stood there and kept him company. :) We ended up watching Lost and went to bed early!

Saturday morning I just got some things done around the house - laundry, grocery list, etc. One big thing I accomplished was getting my wedding planner organized. I put everything into nice little plastic sleeves and organized receipts and all that fun stuff. Mat and I basically decided what we want to do for our wedding invitations and just need to finalize those in the next couple days. I'm thinking we'll have them printed in the next week!! That is a big relief. That night, we went to dinner with my mom and dad at a new place we haven't been before. It was pretty good, but I don't think will take the top spot away from any of our old favorites. Then we headed to my parents house for a game of Mexican Train Game Dominoes. We had fun, but it ended up being a pretty long game! Mat and I headed home and just went to bed. We're just so crazy sometimes!

Sunday we got our grocery shopping done and as you already know played some disc golf. We also watched The Darwin Awards and Jurassic Park. I bought Mat Jurassic Park for Christmas, so that was one we were watching as we were making dinner. The Darwin Awards we rented and I quickly closed my eyes. Mat said that he thought it was okay and enjoyed it. We roasted our first chicken ever last night! It was really good, but seemed like a lot of work when you can just buy those delicious rotisserie chickens for the same price and no work! So I don't know how many roasted chickens we'll be making in the future.

That pretty much sums it up! It was too short, as always, but we have such a great time together and it was so fun to see my parents and get to catch up with them. I hope everyone had a great weekend!

TGIF!

How wonderful it feels as 5:30 on Friday gets closer and closer! We're almost there and time to enjoy the weekend. Mat is making me go to the gym after work (gag), but then I guess we can really start our weekend. Technically, it is only my weekend that begins tonight since Mat has to work tomorrow morning.

I'm not sure what the plans are for the weekend yet. I know it will involve cleaning my work and a grocery store! Mat and I really want to decide on invitations this weekend so we can get those ordered soon.

Tomorrow, we may "run into" my parents at dinner. Hee hee. We might even be crazy and play a board game or something. Who knows??

I might try to go through my magazines this weekend I've been collecting over the last few months to tear out pictures of things I like and want to save for decorating our house - someday! I think I have too many things I want to do. I've started typing in recipes, but that is one project that is going to take me forever...

Have a great weekend!

Movies and Chemical Peels?

So the chemical peel went well. It didn't burn my entire face off! It was sure interesting and I am going to be doing several more. I've got my next one scheduled for April 1. I think my face is already starting to peel, revealing my "new" skin. Hee hee. I don't know about this, but I sure hope it makes a difference. I don't think I'll really be able to tell until I do a few more. Maybe I'll be brave enough to post my before and after pictures!

We watched I Know Who Killed Me and it was in fact, awful. Not nearly as bad as Dragon Wars, but Mat will argue with me on that one. It wasn't a good week for movies in our house. Which reminds me that we need to make a run to the movie store!

Hooray for Thursdays. I'm sure everyone knows that I do love Thursdays. I love Survivor and Lost and they both come on Thursday. Plus, we saved Big Brother from last night and we'll watch that tonight after dinner.

I have booked most of our hotel rooms for our honeymoon! Hooray! I have one more night to book and then our rental car and I think that is it for the honeymoon. Oh, I just can't wait.

The wedding, on the other hand, is not even close to complete. We're hoping to make it to Salt Lake City next weekend to take advantage of the big city and hit IKEA and some other stores we don't have in Boise to try to figure out what we want to do for the reception as far as decorations. We still don't really know what we're doing for centerpieces and the rest of the room's decor. That trip is still tentative, but hopefully we can finalize this weekend.

I noticed today that I'm closing in on 100 posts. Look for my special 100th post soon!

The Things You Do...

Last night I watched a movie called Dragon Wars. Was it the worst movie I have ever seen? Probably not. We didn't turn the movie off, but it definitely wasn't the best. At least tonight I won't feel bad when i make Mat watch I Know Who Killed Me with Lindsay Lohan that I'm sure isn't going to be that good, but i want to see anyway!

We had a great weekend and got lots done! We did get registered at Macy's, but didn't find that much there to register for. We covered most everything at Bed Bath and Beyond and found that Macy's was pretty expensive. They do have good sales, but who knows when those will happen. We got these really ugly toasting flutes for registering at Macy's. We're not even going to have champagne at the wedding, so we might just donate those next time someone picks up in our area.

We are meeting with a printer tomorrow to talk about invitations, so I think that will be interesting. And today I am getting a chemical peel. EEK! It just sounds scary. I don't know if it will be awful or not, but I figure I should at least try it and get my skin in tip top shape. I think I am starting to go into more of a panic mode for the wedding and thinking so much has to be done. But I know we'll get it done!

Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday morning. Is your state having a primary today?