December

We have had a busy month! Chad spent a week in Arizona with the Girls Basketball team, they were invited to a Nike invitational and did very well. I on the other hand thought I was going to die for a week without him, I am usually fine, but found I really kind of wimped out! My sweet parents took pity on me and told me to pack my stuff early and come up to Ogden. I don't think I would be very good single again. I then returned to pick Chad up (loving the drive from Ogden taking anywhere from the normal hour to 3 hours) and we returned to Ogden to spend Christmas with the Gray Family. We were able to visit with almost everyone including 14 nieces and nephews! Spent a day making Candy and treats with my Mom and sis and had plenty of relaxing, along with a lot of snow.
We had such a great time with my parents! They tend to really spoil us...okay they completely spoil us, especially Chad. They even offered to adopt Ginger! They were so cute with her and in turn I think she would rather stay with them. We scored with the Christmas gifts getting a variety of cookbooks, new phones, ties, wallets, amazing Y signs, fluffy bathrobes, way too many awesome treats and money...gotta love money! Chad also scored as our school was doing an sub for Santa auction and we won a signed BYU football by this years team. I don't think I have seen him speechless... ever...he was so funny just kept staring in unbelief.

Family Pics

Updates

No, we haven’t died or lost the will to blog. We have been busy with lots of Football, Hematoma's, ER visits, slings, Hives, broken teeth, pulled teeth, obsessive-compulsive/super psycho crazy cleaning, Thanksgiving prep and multiple trips to DI.
So we went bowling… Chad our super duper killer bowler in order to win the game, and get the strike, tried to hurl himself down the lane. In layman’s terms, he fell. Beaten, bruised and medicated he was doing fine. Even more days down the road, after helping move some furniture and tables Chad decided to grow a new Tricep a.k.a. giant Hematoma in the bowling ball throwing arm.
So a trip to Ogden to talk to In-law Doc, a trip to the ER to see if they would drain the Hematoma which they wouldn’t. So Chad got a sling and Amy got to tie his shoes!
I am crazy in love with this man! He felt so out of sorts, totally in pain and hated feeling like a burden. Now the Hematoma, which had reached the size of a lemon, is now about the size of a walnut. We are so thankful for better movement in the arm, the ability for Chad to tie his shoes and touch his head…yes he will kill me for this post.
Beyond that we are super excited for Mom and Dad Seely to arrive tomorrow and for being somewhat ready for Thanksgiving! Love the pic, stay tune...

Happy Halloween

Here are the cute kiddos from Halloween. We did wake Ginger up and force her to wear a Frog costume for a few minutes. Yep, we're evil. I have to say I have the best honey ever! Even though we had made plans with friends he politely bowed out and then he let me hang out with him all night away from the trick or treating crowd watching TV/movies. He bought pizza and Halloween candy to appease the psycho ailing wifey, then he had to endure me sleeping on the couch for most of the evening. He is an amazingly patient man!! I don't know if I have ever loved him more!!

Catch up

Whew! It's been a long month. We both had end of the terms, mine today and Chad's last week. Lot's of games, lots of Relief Society and High Council. Plenty of playing at Wolf Creek, football games and not enough sleep! I come home each day and struggle to not nap on the couch after work, only to drag myself out of bed again at 5:15 to drive to Lehi and then to South Jordan to start the day all over again.
We had a great condo and 4 nights at Wolf Creek. The weather was beautiful and the fall leaves brilliant in the Canyon. We had a great time with friends and really got to relax a little.
Here are a few pictures from Wolf Creek. And a shot from bowling with friends. Yep I'm ruined by facebook and Wii bowling, I'm just not as good in real life!

New Wreath

First decorations of fall!! I found white pumpkins and will have to have pictures of those tomorrow, hopefully they won't be covered by snow!

Week in Review

This has been an interesting week! Monday after a busy day at work in preparation to going to the Volleyball Luau I took Ginger out for our normal after work walk. While talking to Chad on the cell phone and walking in the park area, out of no where another dog comes darting out from behind me starts to attack Ginger. I am yelling trying to pull her up and the two dogs apart and finally have to pull the other dog off of Ginger. Which ended up with my hand (thumb mostly) inside the other dogs mouth...yep, like a little kid I have been bitten by a dog!

I pulled the other dog (25+lbs) off and carry it back to it's backyard. It was a dog I knew and it had escaped its owner while walking to the mailbox. I left Ginger with this man and his kids in the park as I couldn't handle both of them. I dropped the dog off in the backyard, and headed back to Ginger (extremely freaked out, unhappy, but not hurt).

This all happened of course with blood running down my arm, all over my clothes, all over both dogs. And the kids in the park staring...(one told me I had an ow-ee) yep, gotta love it!! So my hand is fine, the picture looks worse than it was, it became really swollen and super stiff, but didn't get worse. Chad got home, I cried (yes, I'm very proud of the fact that I didn't do it until I got in the house and Chad showed up) he called my dad to find out if we needed to get it checked out, and Dad suggested antibiotics and a tetanus shot.

Yes, we did skip the Luau!

We have had a good week, hanging out with friends who had surgery, a great game day hanging out and having wonderful food. I also had a chance to study and prepare for a Relief Society lesson on Sunday. I have been released after 5 years from Young Women's and have been called to serve as the 1st Counselor in the Relief Society.

I don't think I have been so nervous to teach in a long time! The lesson was on the Eternities and the 3 degrees of glory and after reading it all week and studying a ton, I had about 15 minutes. It went well, and a lot of prayers were answered. I feel so grateful that the sisters in our Relief Society helped! I think that makes the biggest difference.

This need week we are getting ready for a little vacation with friends in Wolf Creek. So excited!

Happy October!!

I love October, I'm hoping at one point we get the crisp autumn air and colored leaves everywhere. I'm on the look out for the perfect white and orange pumpkins for our front porch and having a hard time walking through any store without buying fall decorations, Halloween candy and big fatty pumpkins :)

New Title Pic

Since a few people have asked the new title pic is from http://wordle.net/ . I think I emailed the wrong link to several of you. Let me know what you come up with!

Amy's Engaged!!

Nope not me, that was over 10 years ago for us! But our good friends Amy and Wayne got engaged last night. We are so happy for them, and just love that she is marrying someone we love hanging out with!! Bring on the Cruise!

New Office

So we decided to sell our Day Bed through our new favorite KSL Classifieds. So we have wanted to create a home office that we could both use. We applied the funds procured from the Day bed sell and went shopping for desks. We found this combo at IKEA. Tons of added storage and a place we can study, work on lessons, do crafts, and just hang out in. I think it's so cute that Chad wanted desks facing each other so we could hang out in the same room. I feel so blessed to have him!!

I'm it......

I have been tagged by my good friend Christi

Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking them.Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

1. I have to clean up while a cook, meaning I have to keep filling the dishwasher, wiping off counters as I go, basically have all the dishes finished by the time dinner is on the table mostly because I hate having a huge stack of dishes at the end of dinner.

2. I have to clean once a week. Even if it doesn't need tons of cleaning. I think it stems from Saturday cleaning every week while growing up.

3. I have to straighten our main floor before going to sleep.

4. Instead of snoring I make a little puffing sound if I am really in a deep sleep. My dad does this exact same thing.

5. I love power tools. I envy my dad's awesome basement shop that houses ban saws, tons of tools and drills etc. I want my own room like that in our house.

6. I have an amazing sense of smell (too good at times). Probably my favorite is freshly bathed babies. And I also love the smell of ski wax. My dad would wax our ski's the night before we would go to skiing, I love that smell, reminds me of winter and home.

I tag, Erin, Tara, Chad, Pat, Kat and Nancy

First 5K and Game Day

Well I have completed my first 5k! Our stake had a Stake Olympics yesterday and our biggest loser group made a goal to walk the 5k. I was defiantly not as prepared as I thought. I have been working out every day and have added in the elliptical sporadically throughout the week...not the same as walking or running on the road... Part of the group participated, a lot of them running and a few of us walked. I now have the 5k bug, I really think I would like the have a way better time so I am going to start preparing for the next race.

So after the race we started prep on our game day food, we had an awesome mini food theme. Chad and I made mini twice baked potatoes, mini meatloaf, and Tara's key-lime tarts. Our friends brought great mushroom quiches, cheese dip and mini chips, and mini cranberry muffins. A great time was had by all, and yes the game was amazing!

The amazing Brandon and Maximus (just check out those legs!)

To close for comfort

Well the BYU game was definitely intense. We would rather win by more than just one point! We had our game friends over and indulged in one of our fav's which is Breakfast for dinner. So we made Vanilla French Toast, Crepes, and Tam brought the best Stratta...so going to have to duplicate that!
So friends left and we settled down at 2am for a somewhat short night before going to Stake Conference. Well Ginger had been a little off all weekend and woke us up at 4 ish crying/yipping and shivering with pain, we got up and quickly dressed and took her to the Animal Hospital. Hours later and several bucks spent, we found out that she has a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection), they started her on antibiotics and some pain meds (liquid form...fun for us). She has stopped shivering and seems a little more normal. We will check with our Vet in a week to see if all is well. So to say the least we missed Stake Conference and have both been sleep deprived all day. You're all thinking...it's a dog and as we would both say (since we live in babyville (for at least a few more months))...but she is our dog and part of our family! No, not at all defensive...

So cute!

This picture was on our nephew Zach's blog. He is truly a wonderful blessing in our family! His parents Doug and Nancy are so loving and patient and just do an awesome job with all of their kids. I so hope that I can be that kind of mom. She has 6 kids and does an amazing job!

Ginger Prison and Game Day

Yes, our little puppy likes to sneak under the fence. So this week I cleaned up the backyard and made what we refer to as Ginger prison. She loves being out there. As much as I love the concrete and plan on putting in a hot tub...(hopefully for Christmas), I do wish we had a little patch of grass for her to hang out on. Now she sits on the porch and barks at planes going by and I don't have to worry about her doing an army crawl under the fence.
Yep...looks like hot tub ground to me...
Game Day shirts Baby! (yep, kind of a freaky celestial glow to the B)

We had a successful game day with a win from the Cougs! Our friends brought Ho-Ho cake (yes, ho ho, it tastes like a ho ho but even better, it's divine!)Tomato cups, Potato Salad, and yummy Spinach salad. We had sausages on the grill, 7 layer dip and one of our favorites a Layered Salad. All had a good time, as you can see from the pics below. We wish family had been here to party and watch football! Baby Burrito Max watching football.




Yes, and our purchase for the year..... the tablecloth...no my whole kitchen isn't BYU, I just couldn't resist buying a new game day accessory

Why I need to excercise

Forty minutes of cardio 4x a week can double the amount of blood flow to the hippocampus (the brain's memory center), enhancing recall, report scientists.-Fitness Mag

This is my motivation for the week. Since last night, I forgot my phone was on my seat belt and I stopped to run an errand and lost it for 12 hours. How lame am I that I have felt like I lost an appendage or even my car. I am far too dependant on my cell phone. So as I drove around running errands this Saturday morning in preparation for Game Day...I realized I missed talking to my husband or friends any ol time I wanted to, being able to answer a text when someone texted me, my grocery list, the code to my parents gated community...and a whole lot of other things.

So I will exercise more this week in order to have more flow to my brain. Apparently I need it since my phone has been pulling most of the weight.

Too Funny!!

Sweet idea

Okay, so I desperately miss my photo editing program from the State. But love the pic on the right, here I sit in front of the Olympics totally exhausted thinking, where could I put this, and what word would I do???

Return of the Youngstroms

Yep, the Youngstroms are just visiting Utah. I would say Zion, but New York really does rock...alright maybe it's a second to Seattle. Yes, we would love to move to the real world! Anyway, while I worked today Chad and the Youngstroms visited Provo and then we met up with friends for dinner at our fav restaurant Lanikai BBQ Grill in South Jordan. The best Pork, Garlic Chicken, and BBQ Beef we have had in Utah. Now we can say the Fry Bread also rocks too! We love having family in town and love Anna Bear even more! Just a few pics of our evening.

Best Friends

I just want to thanks my friend Amy for being the best friend a girl could have! She is such an inspiration to me and encourages me to be better. She is also so incredibly funny and one of the most amazing people I know. I just want to thank her for helping me through major heartache recently and for being my rock! I don't know what I do without her!

Google and other deep thoughts

Google is my friend. We have a deep relationship, it not only makes me look good at work when it answers my odd questions, but it also helps me learn new things like how to fix a fence or dishwasher, how to order parts or books, how to cook certain foods, the list is endless.
But when I have those deep thoughts that I ponder on constantly and even dream about, I often wish that that my friend Google worked on brains. Like when I voice the never ending question, "What do you want for dinner?" I could access my Chadoogle and it would say, "Wow, I really want tacos." Or when I am stuck in an extended meeting, I could reference my Workoggle and it would tell me what time I would get out of the meeting or what's going on in my office that I might need to rush back to. Or I could hit the ever ending Friendoogle or Enemyoogle (yes, apparently I have arch enemies just like Batman) and it would give me advice on how to help someone, what they are thinking or how to fix a problem.
How grateful I am that we have prayer the best "oogle" that we could ever need! One that actually answers back, and provides support and love. I am also oh so grateful for my wonderful Chadoogle that thankfully never goes offline and continues to help me oh so many times. Yes I am having dilemmas in my oh so "Psycho Amy" world that I only wish I could Google and fix. So to my blogoogle one of the many questions is, how do you love someone who despises you??

Presents for Ginger?

That's right, bacon, chicken, or beef flavored bubbles that your dog can chase...

We thought we would get this so Chad can take Ginger to school athletic activities!

I love new plants!

We purchased beautiful flowers and herbs yesterday. We have a new beautiful green house that I go to in Lehi and it has some of the most gorgeous flowers I have ever seen. I truly have to control myself when I am there! Due to our fab travels this summer and me thinking that it is stupid to have someone come water your plants while we were gone, new flowers were also a necessity...okay, just in my vain mind could they be considered a necessity, but it's also nice to have your house look like you haven't moved and left your sad dead planters for the next inmates.

Super Dooper Pooper

Yes, this is the cutest little girl ever! This was the first time we had met Anna, she warmed up pretty quickly, she is so funny and greets you with Hi! constantly. She was a trooper that is for sure, I have never seen a little one put up with being stuck in a stroller for days or in a car-seat for so many hours. She is a tough little girl and just too cute not to post.

West Point

This was a wonderful tour, we went on the hour tour and went through the museum. We then drove to Sleepyhollow and barley missed a tour through the mill. We then went to the giant outlets...yes with a honey that doesn't love to shop. Chad was a good sport and we were able to visit a few of the stores. I think I could spend a few days there!