Halloween Festivities!

I absolutely love holidays- the decorations, fun holiday crafts, all of the food... I just love it. But this year I was a little disappointed because I didn't have much time to prepare for Halloween. I have been planning a craft for over a month now, and I have yet to even start it. I didn't even get a real costume, I just wore a $5 pumpkin shirt I found at Walmart (although a lot of my patients at work liked it, just sayin'). Anyway, yesterday afternoon I had some time at work to at least plan a monstrous meal for Jared and myself, which I am pretty proud of how it turned out!
Course #1: Pumpkin potion with spider rolls and blood n' guts brew (aka strawberry daquiris)

Course #2: Spooky salad

Course #3: Petrifying paninis shaped like bats and ghosts

I was going to fry up some pumpkin donuts as well, but I still needed to carve my pumpkin! Jared carved a Yuban pumpkin and I carved the Mario Kart ghost. :)

In all of my planning yesterday I remembered that today they will be celebrating the day of the dead in Mexico, so we're going to have a Mexican feast tonight complete with enchiladas, quesadillas, and chips and dip! Speaking of which, I better go assemble our enchiladas so Jared can bake them while I'm at work tonight :)

First day of kindergarten... I mean work...

So today was Jared's first day at his new job. We both woke up early and I made him some eggs and toast for breakfast (if I was a really good wife there would have been bacon too...). I decided to drive him to the bus stop, so just after 7 we left the house and headed for the station. We sat in the car for a few minutes until the bus pulled up and with a quick goodbye kiss Jared hopped out and got on the bus. Can I just tell you that I felt like I was sending my little boy off to kindergarten?? (Granted I'm not sure exactly what that feels like, but I think what I felt was pretty close.) I pulled away choking back tears and feeling very nervous for Jared because he was going out into the big, scary working world for the first time. To make matters worse the bus followed me all the way up the street and from my rearview mirror I saw it get on the freeway. Who knew I'd get so emotional? It took me a while, but finally I realized Jared is 28, not 5, and I'm pretty sure he can take care of himself. :)
In other news, I learned several things about Walmart this morning.
1. Going at 7:30am is the best time ever because nobody is there yet. You literally have the store to yourself.
2. If you are crazy enough to go at 7:30am, make sure you park on the food side. Apparently they lock up the doors on the other side at night so you can't get in over there. I learned that one the hard way.
3. If you ever become homeless and you're looking for a cart to snatch, Walmart is the place to go. Most stores make an effort to lock up their carts at night, but there had to be at least 100 carts sitting in the parking lot this morning. Jackpot.
Anyway, I better get back to unpacking!

Despite what Jerry Seinfeld says, things are going great.

Jared turned on the TV the other night and I saw a few minutes of Seinfeld. Jerry was doing one of his little stand-up things and he was talking about how moving in with your parents is never a sign that things are going well in your life. Nobody says they plan on marrying a great girl (or guy), finding a job that pays well and has good benefits and if all else is going well they plan on moving in with their parents... Well I just have to say that I am thoroughly enjoying the time we're spending at my parents' house! And guess what Jerry, things are going great. We found a nice townhouse to move into, Jared should be starting his job soon and I rocked my interview today. So there! Anyway, I am very excited to move into our new place on Saturday (here's a plug for anyone who's available to help us move), we'll have to have a party once everything is settled!

Dressing the part

Tonight for dinner we decided to use a voucher that came with our vacation package to the hotel restaurant, Butlers (You may want to google "Butlers Restaurant London" for the full effect of this story). We had been out and about all day and staying here to eat sounded much better than going out in the rain again and doing more walking. We walked down to the lobby and waited by the desk at the door to the restaurant. After a few minutes a worker wearing a nice suit came up and asked if we had a reservation, to which we replied that we had come to make one and we'd like it for as soon as possible (this sounds much better than saying you never made one :) ). He said he would check if there was a table available and walked away for a few seconds. He came back and led us over to the bar (through the mostly empty restaurant) and told us to have a seat and wait for someone to come get us when a table was ready. We sat down for a few minutes and discussed how everyone we saw in the restaurant was wearing fancy clothes and that we were horribly underdressed. Jared was at least wearing a collared shirt and I had on a blouse slightly nicer than the v-neck I wore earlier, but we were still in our jeans and tennis shoes. After sitting awkwardly and discussing whether or not we should go change, we decided to go upstairs and put on nicer clothes. Luckily, being LDS, we had Sunday clothes in our suitcases, which we put on and then headed back to the restaurant. As soon as we walked up to the door a worker came over and asked if he could show us to a table for 2. Who cares if we had a reservation, we looked classy! We immediately were seated and brought menus. This was pretty much the nicest restaurant I have ever been to in my life. They had food on the menu like duck and pollock (I had to google that one when we got back to our room because I had no idea what it was- that's how you know it's good). After our 3 course meal, which took an hour and 40 minutes (these European meals that last more than 15 minutes have been a rough adjustment for us) we left the restaurant having learned an important lesson: Always dress the part. If you try to walk into a high class restaurant wearing jeans chances are you'll be led past many empty tables and told there are no availabilities and they'll sit you down at the bar like a child on timeout so you can think about how underdressed you are. If you come looking like you belong in the fancy-pants feeding place you'll probably get a table and food. Probably.

Contest Craze... :)

For some reason if someone I know is participating in a contest of some kind I really like helping them win. For example: My cousin was once competing for a column in a newspaper. I spent lots of time each week recruiting friends to vote for her posts so she would win (thanks to those of you who voted for her back in the day, and sorry to those of you I annoyed :) ). She now has her own weekly column! So, now my brother Tim is trying to win some free passes to Disneyland so he can take his cute little boys there. It's my goal to help him win the contest! So, if you wouldn't mind, please take a minute and go to the facebook page for 101.9 The End (http://www.facebook.com/#!/1019TheEndUtah) and like it, then go down to their post about the Disneyland pass give away and like Tim Hemingway's comment. If he wins I will owe you all big time :) Oh, and did I mention how much my nephews love Mickey Mouse and this trip would be making their wildest dreams come true? ... Was that a little bit overkill? Probably. Anyway, go like his comment and you will make me happy!

Jumping on the bandwagon...

So I finally did it... I started a blog like the rest of the world. I can't promise that I will update it frequently, but who knows, maybe I'll become an avid blogger and provide daily updates of what is going on in my oh-so-exciting life. As for now, I am just trying to finish up school! Only 3 1/2 weeks until I am officially a college graduate. Crazy, huh? Welp, I guess I'll post again when I have something to post about :)

new blog

Welcome to my new blog!