Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was spent in California. It was such a nice and relaxing break from work and school for us both. We are so grateful for our families and all that we have been blessed with. Here are just a few glimpses of Thanksgiving day and week.

We were just missing Jack and his family in this picture but he did hang out with us:)

New Addition To Our Family

I bet you all were not thinking that the new addition is a bird! Haha. Well about a month ago Ben and I brought home Pierre from Pet Smart. We have been working hard to train him and get him used to being around people. We both admit that it is nice to have something else alive in the apartment when we are home alone. He's full of personality and character and we are loving having him in our home. I guess we are now considered bird people...oh well :)

It's Been A While

So I realize it has been a while since I have posted anything on our blog. Sorry. Life seems to have gotten busier since Fall semester started for Ben and I started working. So here is a little bit of what we have been up to.

Crafting season has commenced! Well, at least it did a few weeks ago. My lovely neighbor and I stole this idea from http://www.decorchick.com/diy/diy-fall-topiaries-a-michaels-knock-off/ to make Fall Topiaries to add a little festivities to our apartment. I am actually pretty happy with how mine turned out.

We bought an ottoman! I love it! My favorite part is that Ben sits by me more:) It opens up and has a ton of storage inside. We got it at RC Willey on an amazing sale. Sorry this isn't the best quality of picture. I took it with my phone.

My parents came out for General Conference. It was a lot of fun to go up to Salt Lake to listen to it. I realized we didn't really get a good picture of my parent's and us but I like this one of Ben and I.

This is the only picture we have of my parent's and I. Let's face it...this happens to all of us at least once during a General Conference talk. It's not that the talk is boring but that it's normally after lunch and we just need a nap.

Besides that life has been great. Ben has applied to two Ph.D. programs and has two more applications to finish. We are anxious and excited to find out where he gets in and where we will be this time next year.

Ben's BYU Plates

Ben's plates were up for renewal at the end of August and he could no longer work the system to keep his Tennessee plates. He was sad to have to finally get Utah license plates. He had managed to live in Utah for so many years and never have to get Utah plates until our final year here. So to make this experience a little more fun for him, we decided to get him BYU Utah plates. He's still sad about his Utah driver's license though, but at least he has BYU plates right?

Top 6 Reasons Not to Live in Utah

1. Utah Drivers

-If I had a dollar for every stupid one I came across today we would be rich

2. Construction

- It's EVERYWHERE! When there is not snow there is construction.

3. Utah Drivers

-Today I saw someone turn their left blinker on and turned into the right lane...I guess I should be content that they at least tried to use their blinker

4. Snow

-Who likes walking in it or who likes driving in it? Sure it may be pretty and you might be excited the first day or two but then it never goes away!

5. Utah Drivers

-My favorite ones are the idiots who after I have blinked and moved halfway into the lane on the highway decide they also want to be in that lane with no warning.

6. Lack of Good Mexican Food

-I have yet to find decent Mexican food, if you know of any please fill me!

I guess in the end Utah does have a few good qualities...such as the mountains, the Olympics, and BYU.

Lots of Firsts

As Ben and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary I reflected a little on this past year and all that we have done. It was a year of many "First..." and so I thought I would share a few of those with you guys. I know we didn't capture everything but here is some of it.

First time I realized Ben will always want a bite

First trip to Disneyland together...so much fun!

First time showing Ben my mad tomahawk throwing skills

Ben's first time throwing the tomahawk...not too shabby!

First Halloween together

First Thanksgiving together

First time taking Ben shooting with the Family

First Christmas

First Valentines Day...since it was on a Sunday Ben made an amazing dinner of Filet Mignon.

First Easter...Ben was in Pittsburgh presenting at a conference the few days before Easter, hence the lovely Pitt shirts :)

First Biplane ride

First Anniversary at Chefs Table

1 Whole Year

Yesterday Ben and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary. I still can't believe that a year has gone by already. It has really been a wonderful year. I love him so much and am so grateful to be married to such a great man.

For our anniversary we decided to go out to Chefs Table. For those of you not in the Provo/Orem area, Chefs Table is a this nice fine dining restaurant in Orem. It was such fun place to go. They pull out your chair for you, lay your napkin in your lap, bring out new silverware as needed, the whole deal. The food was AMAZING!! So good. For starters they bring out this sorbet to cleanse your palette. We then ordered New England Crabcakes. Then we both had a caesar salad. For dinner I ordered the Tenderloin Marsala (Roasted Tenderloin of Beef Finished in a Marsala & Veal Sauce Herb Roasted Baby Red Potatoes & Seasonal Vegetables) and Ben ordered House Beef Tenderloin Filet (Peppered Tenderloin Filet Served with Mango Chutney or Veal Reduction Sauce). Sounds Amazing right?! Well it was. The food was amazing. We finished off the meal with this chocolate mousse dessert.

My favorite part about the meal was that we were not rushed to eat and move on. It seems like today most restaurants just want to get people in and out as quickly as you can. But Chefs Table lets you take your time to eat. One course is never served until you are both done with what you are working on. It was nice and relaxing and really enjoyable.

I didn't get a picture from the outside so I snagged this one off their website.

Pioneer Day Fireworks

So for those of you outside of Utah, Pioneer day is celebrated on the 24th of July and is a day that celebrates when the Mormon Pioneers first entered the Salt Lake Valley to settle after being forced out of Nauvoo. Well, my favorite part about Pioneer Day is that there are fireworks. Probably just as many fireworks as on the 4th of July. Ben and I were sitting around Saturday evening realizing we missed a lot of the festivities and fun. So we decided to look up where in Utah there were going to be firework shows. We were excited when we found out that Heber puts on a fireworks show by Deer Creek Reservoir. We decided to drive up and park on a pull out overlooking the lake and watch the fireworks. Ben took these awesome pictures of the amazing show put on. Hope you all enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed the fireworks!!

This first one is probably my favorite

So as we were sitting out waiting for it to get dark we noticed all these boats on the lake floating over to where they could watch the fireworks. Smart idea huh? Well, my favorite part is that as soon as the fireworks show was over we saw all these lights (boats) race to the dock to get there before all the other boats so they wouldn't have to wait to load up their boats. It was pretty entertaining.

World's Largest Water Balloon Fight

Ok, so not the most attractive pictures of us be we were soaked! My pants are normally light gray. BYU set the record for the largest water balloon fight today. There were 3,927 people and 120,000 balloons. Go to the link below to see a video of the fight. It was AMAZING!!! So much fun!

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=11694889&hl=7

Spiral Sablée Cookies

Ben's latest baking adventure...they are good!!!

Sunbeams!

So we just got called to teach the lovely sunbeams in our ward. This should be a fun adventure since Ben is used to teaching college kids and I have never taught primary. We accept any advice you guys have of what has worked for you guys!

Croissants

This past Christmas I bought Ben this baking book that he wanted. I have to admit I LOVE bread, so I was pretty excited yesterday when he pulled it off the shelf and decided to make Croissants. My favorite part about this picture is the first sentence on the page..."few pastries are as satisfying as a buttery croissant" ...so true!

He made both regular croissants and pain au chocolat...which are basically croissants with chocolate in them. Yum!!

Don't they look good?!

Breaking In Our Tent

Ben and I went camping for the first time together since we have been married. Our ward hosted a fun Ward Campout down at the Payson Lakes. We think we have a pretty good set up :)

First (Hopefully Annual) Hollister Air Show

Hollister had it's first and hopefully annual air show memorial weekend. My mom and dad volunteered as radio communicators with their ham radios so Ben and I figured we would go and spend the afternoon walking around and checking everything out. It was pretty cool! So I thought I would share with you some of the fun things we saw.


It was a beautiful day for an air show. It cleared up and if I remember right was around 80 degrees. Not too bad since it had been raining the day before. I learned two important lessons that day...wear sunscreen even if you don't think it is that hot or that you won't be out there that long and if you decide to use some of your brother's sunscreen at least put it on evenly! I successfully made away with some weird and random sunburns. Hopefully they will not tan and leave funny marks on my legs, toes, and chest all summer.

The show started out with the flag being presented by a skydiver. The mayor also sky dived that morning. They said he chickened out at the altitude that this guy jumped at, so they took him higher:)

There were all kinds of interesting planes and performances

This one was probably one of our favorites. This plane was actually flown by a lady, named Vicki. In this picture she was flying straight up right before she started to fall and come straight back down. They compared her plane to the corvette of planes.

They also had some WWII planes fly around for us. These planes are actually parked at the Hollister Airport.

This guy was crazy. During his take off he did a turn within the few seconds of being in the air, it was crazy! This picture was actually of his flying by (upside down) to cut some ribbon from poles that a group of people were holding on the runway.

So during our wanderings around the tarmac during the air show we saw that you could ride in a biplane and we figured that this was a rare opportunity so we seized the moment. This was the biplane that we rode in! It was so much fun! The interesting part about this plane is that it seated four people and then the pilot. Normally biplanes just fit the pilot and one other person

My Mom, Dad, Ben and I as we taxied out to the runway

Us in the plane

Mom was so excited. She has always wanted to ride in a biplane but never had the chance until now

Dad's face is priceless in this picture!

A view of Hollister from the sky...no its not like the clothing store...no it is not by the beach...

We made it safely back to the ground :)

Jared and Tierney also took a ride