Don't you just love it when Pinterest recipes are actually delicious!? I really really do. I have decided that if something looks good, sounds good and  the ingredients are normal, then it is my duty to try it out!

As a result we have been trying out a bunch of recipes lately, trying to branch out of our dinner rut. I have really enjoyed trying to play chef! Usually I am really bad at cooking but things are on the upswing (since I decided that reading the directions really is a good idea). Needless to say we have had some very exceptional meals as of late so I decided to share my favorite Pinterest finds...thus far....

I'm going to go ahead and NOT call these "Chicken Rollups" and ask that we never again use the term rollups for anything but fruit. Lets instead call them "Chicken Flauta Burritos".

http://www.wendyweekendgourmet.com/2012/05/happy-cinco-de-mayo-celebrate-with.html

This next one has made repeat appearances at our house! It is copycat PF Changs Mongolian Beef. And it is sooooo delicious!

http://bakedinthesouth.com/2012/09/pf-changs-mongolian-beef-copycat-recipe/

And for dessert Homemade Chocolate Rolo Cookies. We had a general consensus that these are better when made from scratch rather than a cake mix.

http://thefarmgirlrecipes.blogspot.com/2011/11/rolo-cookies.html

Just for the record, these are not my pictures, these are directly from the links below them. Anywho...There are many more recipes that are coming up in the rotation, including some homemade enchilada sauce that really sounds AMAZING! I just thought I'd let you all in on these recipes now so you don't miss out any longer!

Thank you also to our mom's for also sending us recipe after recipe so we can eat our childhood favorites (the pork chops especially)!

 Well hello everyone....


It seems that time has yet again gotten away from me and so much has happened. I was looking through the pictures on my phone and realized that I take a lot of pictures intended for this here blog and then I never actually post them, or anything for that matter. So this post will be a bit of catch up through pictures! Enjoy!

The loss of her best friend; Her new favorite bedtime spot

Cole Family Reunion!

HAPPY FOURTH with our McConkey fam!

Standing in the car. Turns out this is the prime escape position.

She gets more and more weird every day! Just sits wherever she would like these days.

BEAR LAKE IS GREAT GREAT GREAT! (go utes)

Grandma's headstone is finally in! It is a beauty!

I also wanted to mention our weekly Tuesday dinners with Grandpa Lyle. Oh the fun we have! Every week is something new and funny. It has been a great blessing to all of us to get to sit down with him and talk and laugh. Plus, it has given my sisters and myself and chance to work on our culinary skills (we don't watch the Food Network for nothing!). 

Nora is going very well. She has been super cuddley lately which is odd because she is usually way too hot. I am not complaining though. She is seriously my baby. She is also getting so weird! She watches us sleep (Casey has noticed), she loves pinecones, she uses us as stretching posts, and we are pretty sure she thinks she has hands...? Oh and the other night during our exciting game of fetch on the Mueller Park fields, she decided it was a good idea to chase a passing motorcycle down 1800. GAH! I thought my life was over. Lucky for us she remembered herself and she got scared and stopped dead in her tracks before she got dead in the road. 

We also had a wonderful opportunity to attend the temple last week. Just with all the sad things happening in the world lately I felt like I needed to be somewhere a little more hopeful. That accompanied by our stake conference made for a great week. President Taylor said something/reminded us of something that really stood out to me and I wanted to shout it out for all to hear! It is so simple, and we all already know, but basically he said that the church is a constant. It will not change as the world changes and we shouldn't expect it to. Jenna and I had just talked about this earlier in the week so imagine my surprise when he said this! It was fantastic! It was like he was there in our conversation or like he put a seal of approval on it. Amazing. 

Ok I will wrap it up now. Obviously a lot more has happened but I can't remember. Oops! We have had a great summer thus far. Casey finishes his finals tomorrow and then he has a week and a half to relax before school starts up again. Hopefully we will get some prime Lagoon time in! 

Bye bye now!

Becca

Lets start this post of with what I woke up to yesterday morning:

I call this "The Creature"

Yeah mornings are really hard for Nora. She is definitely in the right family! Also disregard the mess.

Yesterday was jet skiing and boating day with the Call family! Everyone is in town from Airzona and Wyoming so we are spending lots of time together, which is fantastic! We headed up to Pineview and spent the blustery day playing in the warm sand and the crazy wavey water. You really wouldn't believe how crazy the wind was. Since I met Casey he talked about his family's beach day. It is probably his favorite day of the year and he has always looked forward to it. Even though the weather was just ok, we still managed to get some sun and had a most joyous time.

It has been forever since I have been at the beach with little kids. Really I have never quite been there with them, we were always the little ones at Bear Lake. Anyway, we made, decorated and destroyed sandcastles and laughed to our hearts content! Poor Casey had to study for his biology test that he had to take on our way home so he didn't play much.

Hiding from the wind (my least favorite element) and the sand

Our day just got so much better as we walked to our car to pack up, and my slippery poopy iPhone decided to jump from the ledge of my bag and shatter it's screen. It would be more fine if this wasn't my second iPhone in 3 months. I have never had such a problem with a telephone before and it makes me crazy! Good news is we had a warranty so it didn't cost us an arm and a leg to replace. It took forever though so that kind of put a damper on the rest of the night. Meh.

Now to end this post, another picture of Nora!

Also, still no movers. And so we wait...

Love,
Becca

Ok well we have had an eventful week to say the least. My parents have officially vacated the premises, leaving us with the crap shack (literally. More on that later), and all of their belongings...mostly. And so now we anxiously await the arrival of the movers as we try to prepare for our own move from the basement to the first floor. Exciting stuff right? Sure! We feel like we are in limbo. We are also moving Rachel back down to the basement and Jenna will be moving from my grandparents to join her there. Casey's life is going to get interesting! So lots of moving stuff in our future and not a lot of time.

My parents are doing swimmingly in Kentucky! From what we have seen their cute house will be a great fit for them and the westie's. I have even been told my dad has already had to chase one of the dogs around the neighborhood. So really they are settling right in, with just a couple of suitcases and like three pieces of furniture purchased upon their arrival.

Along the lines of the doggies...Nora has been a little out of sorts. She can't find her Lolli friend or the rest of her people. The night before they left we were piling things all around the house to prepare what we could for the movers and that stressed Nori right out (ps we were light years ahead of Kim and Kanye on that one!). Long story short, we spent the early hours of that morning cleaning up the dog IBS that took over our room (hence the Crap Shack). Poor doggy. It was kind of funny, more like really funny and horrible at the same time. We love her so much though that we mostly just felt bad for her, no hatred or banishment. And now we are just trying to keep her preoccupied with fun things so she doesn't get too sad.

All is well here. The anticipation of pretend home ownership is looming over us and it is kind of exciting! How many people get a practice run before they get their own place? Just as long as the deck doesn't fall off the back of the house while we are here, I think we will be just fine.

Love,
Becca

My favorite days!

I wrote this last week and forgot to add the pictures so I could post it! Pretend it is June 10th, and go:

Oh boy was this last weekend eventful! I really enjoy having so much to celebrate all once! It sure made the work week flyby.

Starting on Friday we had Casey's 25th birthday. That morning he requested to open a present so obviously I had him open the most obvious one: the hammer! Fast forward now to me getting off work early and getting home just in time to see my beautiful anniversary flowers from the birthday boy himself. They are still so beautiful! Peonies are my absolute favorites. They were supposed to be my wedding flowers buuuut the florist apparently had her own ideas and replaced them with all sorts of stuff that we never even talked about!!!!! I am still bitter. I digress.  So that was just a wonderful surprise.

Casey opened the rest of his presents after that and did a very good job at pretending not to notice that there wasn't an iPad. We then headed out to get some cupcakes. Our biggest weakness! They were so delicious guys. After that it was time for a celebratory dinner. My grandpa Lyle decided to take everyone in the family out to celebrate his 54th anniversary with Grandma Sheri. We had so much fun! After spending so much time together before Grandma passed, we were all missing each other a bit so we had a great time catching up again. I will also note that we ate at Joy Luck which is where we had our wedding dinner!

Saturday was our crazy day. We had Casey's flag football game and management test and yard work. Then we were off to Park City for the weekend with our money jar in tow! Casey found a whole bunch of stuff at the outlets. I was not so lucky but it's ok. We stayed at the Caledonian on Main Street which was really really cool. Funny thing though, we have awful luck traveling so of course there was no AC and the bathroom hadn't been cleaned because the fixtures were all broken (so no water could be turned on). We laughed and gagged. All was well. Then I magically found a black mini iPad with Casey's name on it. Weird! I set up a decoy present for him and then had that one set aside as a surprise. He was so excited! That was really the only thing he wanted for his birthday and he thought I didn't get it for him. He also surprised me with some stackable initial rings that I had completely forgotten I had asked for awhile back. I love them. And him.

We completed our anniversary celebrations with Cole family pictures Sunday night and then we ate our year old wedding cake of course! It was interesting to say the least. Definitely not as good as it would have been a year ago.

And that was our weekend. It was lots and lots of fun! I'm sad it's over. And I can't believe it has been a year already. That was honestly my most favorite day ever and i think about it all the time. We had the best first year of marriage anyone could ask for, complete with a puppy and lots of fantastic adventures!

Here's to a zillion more years plus eternity! I LOVE CASEY!

Love

Becca

I am very behind on my posts again. Bear with me!

We had the wonderful honor of burying my sweet grandma this last week. The service was beautiful as were the viewings that were held prior. My aunts and my dad all did a spectacular job in speaking about their mother. I think everyone walked away from it all having their testimonies strengthened and wanting to be a little better and love everyone a little more. It is still so hard to believe that any of it was real. So crazy! And I just have so many thoughts on the day I don't know exactly what to even write about. Just know it was beautiful chaos!  We definitely shared a lot of happy and sad tears with both friends and family. Thank you for all of your prayers, flowers, cards and well wishes. The support from everyone was really just amazing and will be remembered. Plus, we got Casey to sing in both the cousin and family/friend choirs so that is a little victory!

Our family angels on Grandmas 74th birthday.

Memorial necklaces for all the girls!  Made by one of Melinda's friends. 

Grave side

Family gathering night of the services. Wayne is the family photobomber.

Our Memorial Day weekend was fantastic! We spent a lot of time with our families which is always wonderful. We even had a chance to go swim at the old family pool which I loved because that is where we spent our summers as kids and I really wanted Casey to experience it! A funny story for you now: I was trying to teach Casey a guessing game we used to play while swimming that involves dunking and flipping under water. Well I went to dunk Casey, which he mistook as me trying to flip him over, which then forced water up his nose, which also lead to his flailing extremities and his fist punching me square in the face. Not our best moment. He came up laughing and unknowing while I stood there and cried, hoping my teeth were still in my mouth. Fortunately for him I still have my teeth and escaped without a scratch...just a sore face. Casey may have found himself at the bottom of the pool had things not turned out so nicely.

Other recent blessings have come our way, in the form of a job for my dad! Thank you again for your prayers. Looks like Adam and DebTina will be shipping out to Kentucky later this month, for the next two years. It is a really great opportunity so they kind of have to go. And it will be their chance to be missionaries since they will be members of a branch instead of a ward. We are being entrusted with keeping the house standing in their absence. Wish us luck!

As for now we are getting ready to celebrate Casey's 25th (i think?) birthday on Friday! We have a really hard time remembering how old he is. Annnnnnnd we will also be celebrating one year of marriage on Sunday! We have saved our pennies in our money jar and are going up to Park City to shop and eat all the things! A fun fact for you now: June 9th is also the anniversary of my Cole grandparents (54 years together!). Such a blessing to share that with them, especially now that grandma is celebrating in heaven. Oh and I would like to take this time to ask my parents to babysit Nora while we are out? I promise to not guarantee that your shoes will be safe, or that special spot on your floor go unpooped on....

I need to try and make a better blogging habit! Here again I find myself with so much time passed that I am not sure what has all happened, that needs to be shared here. 

Casey did pass his dreadful math final! Thank you to all who prayed and hoped along with us that he could do it! He has started summer semester this last week. He is very motivated this time around so we are trying to make more of an effort to help him study and stay on top of deadlines. The hard part is that Weber doesn't do first and second block semesters like some of the other universities around so this is a summer long event. 

We are both just working away these days so there isn't too much to report there. We are hoping to have a little more free time as we get organized and more adjusted to all of these work changes. Maybe we see Lagoon passes in our future! Oh and we have tried to start running with Nora. It is HILARIOUS. She runs right alongside us, so we don't use the leash, and she loves to chase away the birds!

Onto more serious matters...

Just a couple of weeks ago my dad's position with Eagle-Satan-Gate College was eliminated. For those of you who are close to our family, you are probably thinking "Is this real life?". For those of you who aren't, I will fill you in: This is the 4th or so time that our family has dealt with unemployment, over the last 6ish years. It is never a personal issue with my dad, it is just circumstance. I think Heavenly Father sees us all as seasoned pros with this trial though and we are all feeling like there will be a light at the end of this tunnel. However, please keep my parents in your prayers as this is still a very open ended journey.

Now onto the next matter of business, my beautiful Grandma Sheri. Just within the last month her health has taken a very bad turn. She has graciously battled cancer these last two years, and that combined with other complications have really taken over her body. We have been very blessed to be able to spend a lot of time with her in the hospital and now at home as she has started hospice. Many of you have reached out to our family and offered such great love and support, and for that we thank you! All of us, Grandma and Grandpa included have really felt the influence of your prayers on our behalf. How grateful we are to have such wonderful piece of mind because of the gospel. It is because of that solid testimony of eternal families that our family is so close and strong. We don't have much time left with her here and that just breaks our hearts more than I can say, but we are blessed to be able to look at this as a celebration of life and love! Our whole family is so close and perfectly crazy (some people find it a little odd) and it is all because of Grandma Sheri and Grandpa Lyle. Thus, we have spent a lot of time as a family laughing and happily talking. There are tears of course, but more and more we are finding the peace and joy of this adventure. Again we can't thank you all enough for your thoughts and prayers, and very kind words/memories. Grandma is as optimistic and faithful as ever and we love her more and more for it.

More updates to come! Pictures below!

Becca

Photo Cred: Landon Welch. True Love.

Grandma's 74th birthday! We had happy-teary-sunshine and "Sheri-Oke"- (thanks Mickey!)

So the happenings of our newest adventures have been going really well! I started my new job last Friday and things have been awesome. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays I work as the receptionist at the front desk and then on Wednesdays and Fridays I help out in the HR department. I am still a little nervous about being the receptionist. There are a lot of things I still need to learn how to do and that gives me a bit of anxiety!!! However, I do know that everything I need to know, I will learn in time. Today was my first day helping HR and I loved it! I love the people I work with already. Everyone is so fantastic and friendly. It is a really casual environment which helps me feel at ease. I am really lucky too because this Friday is the anniversary party for the company so we get to leave early for a bowling party. So all in all it is shaping up to be a good week.

We finished school this week! Still no word on Casey's final score for math. It does look like he passed everything else though...or at least using our very reliable math skills we have figured out that he did. Here's to hoping! Everything is going well at his work. He has been really busy and making sure he stays busy so the days go by fast. Flag football is still going. They had their first loss last week (probably because Nora and I weren't there). It sure is a fun time of year!

Nora is having a great old time being Nora. She has decided to expand her kleptomania tendencies to include my shoes. She has never shown interest in them before but yesterday the backyard was littered with all sorts of different pairs! I am thinking she's acting out since Casey and I aren't home as soon during the day. So we will just exercise her more and love her to death because she is the cutest thing on the planet!!!

Having some puppy snuggles!

                              

That is all for now! 

Love,

Us! 

Wow what a crazy couple of weeks Casey and I have had. I can't seem to remember where we left off with this thing! New updates for the blog though. I can't decide on a name or a design. Hopefully this one will stick for awhile.

Where to begin now...

School is coming to a close in the next couple of weeks. We are praying like crazy for Casey to pass his math class. That is probably our biggest stress at this point! Send out good vibes for him on Saturday as he ventures to his final. We are both terrible at math so it has been an interesting semester...you could say it was something along the lines of the blind leading the blind. As soon as this semester ends Casey will have a week or two of summer vacation and then he will start summer semester. I am very grateful for his determination to be done even though it will be a year of straight school. We are also very blessed that his job will allow him to still go and be full time.

Speaking of full time, it looks like I am headed away from the nanny baby and on to another wonderful job opportunity. Without all the details I will have you know that it really has been such a crazy couple of weeks because of this decision; it was not an easy one to make at first. I seriously just felt like I was floating the whole time this was happening and not necessarily in a good or bad way. We have never prayed as hard as we did for this! But I am so happy we did because both Casey and I feel a lot more peaceful now. And can I just say how grateful we are for our wonderful families who have been so helpful and have listened to me gripe about all of this for weeks?! We love you all.

We are really excited though because this is something that will really give us a head start on accomplishing some of our goals for the year. Fortunately this job will also allow me to work right along with my current boss, the nanny baby's mom! I am so excited about that because I just adore their family. So I will be the Office Manager for Axis 41, an advertising agency here in Salt Lake. I will be doing receptionist duties and will also be kind of an intern for their HR department. It is really bittersweet but I know the nanny baby has a fantastic new nanny and I am excited for what is ahead with this position. Definitely many prayers answered here guys. The church is true!

Now for the Nora update: We finished up with puppy preschool last week. Before we could receive the certificate we had to take her through a little course that went through all the training techniques we learned. Well Nora has the moves down but let me tell you...that dog is high maintenance. She was over the treats after five minutes so she would not respond to anything! And if we gave her a treat she would just spit it out on the floor and walk away. So we upped our treat choice and she was a total gem. We are happy to be done with that class for sure. As of now she is just a hairy muddy mess who will give you high fives upon your request!

So that is all for now. We are just trucking along!

Love,
Becca and Casey

I have found a new hobby! Last semester at UVU I decided to try my hand at graphic design. The class was a total nightmare but I learned a lot! So I have put my skills to the test (and believe me the skills I do have are very limited!) and have made some handouts for relief society, different blog headers, and even Rachel's graduation announcement.

I really enjoy doing this stuff! I definitely need some more experience and I definitely need to try and remember where all the right buttons are but it is fun! So in short, if anyone wants any handout, announcement or something just for fun, I would love to make it for you! Oh and it's free!

Here are some examples, they are very beginner so don't judge:

Blog Header

Relief Society Poster Board

Graduation Announcement

Christmas Word Art

Bah! Where have all my days gone? I always let too many things happen without writing them down and then because so many things have happened I don't know where to start or I can't remember everything! Here goes nothing.

Our trip to Arizona was a success! Because of only one minor hiccup in Vegas, we managed to complete the 12 hour drive in one day. We were very very tired but very very happy that we actually got there sooner than anticipated. We really enjoyed spending time with everyone down there. It was great to see Curtis and Lindsay and the girls and Piper and Dixie! They are so fun to just sit and talk with so that was nice. It was also good to see Chris and Brit all settled into their new house and routine. We miss all of them so much! So needless to say we are really excited for any opportunity to present itself wherein we can go back. The weather was rainy and overcast just as we expected, but we went on some awesome hikes with the family our last day there, we got some shopping in and even a date night complete with the most amazing gelato I have ever had! Casey also got to play with Zac and Caleb on their rec league basketball team so that was an experience! We miss every stinking one of them. It was so hard to leave!

Upon our return we prepped Nora for her adventurous week ahead. She has been doing really well with puppy school, though we need to be doing better at practicing with her. She is becoming more confident and is just so happy and smiley! Her surgery went well...she threw up quite a bit once we got her home. She was really out of it too which was funny but the poor thing could hardly sit or lay down because of her sore muscles so she just stood places...very odd. Her newest development is her love of Trix cereal. It probably isn't good for her but her human food preferences are limited so we're ok with it.

As for everything else, we are just trucking along. Our last week was pretty crazy to say the least. We have had some wonderful opportunities present themselves to our little family and now we just need to be making smart decisions concerning them. Here's to hoping for happiness and peace of mind! We also put together this nice (dumpy Walmart) bookshelf/dvdshelf this weekend. It only took all of three or maybe even four tries to get it right. The finishing touch? A nice hammer swing hole to the back panel.  Lovely!

She sat here all by herself I swear.

Love,

Becca

Tis the day for a new blog psot....I meant post and I am too lazy to backspace.

Now I am going to make an attempt to remember the significant moments of the last week. There were some I think? I guess we will start with the Nor-whal a.k.a Nora!

This great puppy went to training school last week. She did pretty well! Though she has the attention span of something that doesn't have an attention span, we made some progress with her. There are only two other dogs in the class. One is a Golden Doodle named Martha (holy cute. I want one!) and the other is a rescue dog, not sure what breed, named Tess. Well Martha let out a bark which then led to Tess barking...nothing really groundbreaking because that is what dogs do...but Nora immediately hid behind and under Casey and his chair. So the main thing for us to do now is to help socialize her more. She is seriously afraid of everything so we have some work to do! Oh and the poor thing is getting fixed next week. Her life is proving to be an interesting one.

This week we are leaving for Arizona to visit with family! It will be a lot of fun and we are ready to hit the road. The weather however is not looking too good for us.It will go from 80's to 60's by the time we are there. Ever since we have been married, every vacation that we have been on has had horrible weather. The honeymoon, Bear Lake, some might and have even said our actual wedding day (which makes me sad so say it only in your head). Anywho, now Arizona is set to be cold and possibly rainy. We will still have a wonderful time though! Can't wait to see everyone!

Ooooh and now for my moment of jealousy! This isn't even my experience but it is too wonderful! My parents and Jenna totally saw Blake Lively at the Cheesecake Factory on Saturday. Jenna even told her she is a big fan (which Jenna, lets be real, you make fun of her way more than admire her), and she smiled and waved back. WHAT?!?! I am dying just thinking about it. I wouldn't be so sad if I had not just been there with Casey that night. Or watching Gossip Girl when Jenna told me. Total bummer! But really very cool. So now Jenna can add that to her list of celebrity fun right under free front row tickets to the Biebs. Whatever Jenna.

She is the blonde in the black coat and gray hat. AMAZING! And creepy.

Oh and side note...when I asked my silly mom about it, all she said was "Ugh she wasn't even with her husband so it doesn't even matter". I could tell she was really disappointed.


Love,
Becca

Happy blog day! Yet another week of chasing dogs, work, and school has passed. 

We topped off Nora's shots with the rabies vaccine last Wednesday. That messed her up pretty bad. Poor thing was really sore and tired for the rest of the day. Really though it was wonderful because then she just held still and didn't chew on anything or anyone. So the bottom line is that I wish she could have a rabies shot at 5:00 every night. Next up for her is puppy preschool or just training school which starts on Thursday. The "hoity toities" at Petsmart went out of their way to tell us that she is not a puppy anymore so it really is just regular training. I love it when people share such useful information with me... It will go for six weeks and by the end she will be my minion. MARK MY WORDS! Oh and we got her papers and learned that her birthday is October 24th. For whatever reason, knowing her birthday has made me so happy! 

In other news, I had to lovely opportunity to assist in potty training the nanny baby this last week. Girlfriend was ready to be done with diapers so it was actually really easy. She has only had two accidents on my watch which is wonderful! Today she told me that she doesn't want to go potty in her pants anymore so she can't wear diapers, she needs to wear undies.

We are heavily in the midst of Casey's math ordeal. Growing up I always used to say that my husband would have to be good at math because there was no hope for me. Well I spoke to soon. Apparently there is no hope for either of us. So it is rather funny to have him relying on me for help. We are two dumbos watching math tutorials on YouTube. 

OOOOOH! My most exciting event from last week was finally purchasing a duvet cover! It took me forever to find one that was affordable and hip and with it. Of course though it was no where to be found when we went to pick it up (it even said it was in store...and that they had plenty in stock). So I gave in and just let us get the one Casey really liked. It is still a great pick so that is a plus, and it came with TWO accent pillows! Casey has a theory though, the lady that helped us just wanted all of my bedding to herself so she mislead us. I think this is a pretty true accusation. 

Love us.

This should probably be referred to as the lost blog. It is really hard to keep up on these things when you would rather just live in the moment rather than write about it. It has been since October since this thing has even been opened up, and some changes have definitely been made in our lives and to the blog (much better to look at now!). 

The changes are as follows: we no longer live in the "buggy" basement apartment, we are both students at Weber State, and as you all know we acquired a puppy monster! So now we are living in my parents basement (they have graciously agreed to let us crash here for as long as we need), still working and going to school. Oh and I guess another major change I should mention is Casey's new-ish job. He actually was offered the position last October...yep! He works at Tom Stuart Construction as an assistant purchaser. He is really good at this job and he really loves working there.

We have also immersed ourselves into loads of different TV shows. On a whim we decided to get Netfilx and since then all of our productivity has gone down the drain. That might be an exaggeration but it sure does feel like it! We started with The Walking Dead during Christmas break, and then Breaking Bad and now Gossip Girl. As lame as that sounds, that show is addicting! Even Casey is hooked. I guess watching pretend upper east siders bully each other is just what we were missing in life? Cool. We'll take it! Side note, our rule now is to go to the gym before any Netflixing can occur.

And now to address the puppy baby. She is really like our baby. We hold her like a baby and talk to her like a baby. Her name is Nora, she is a mini Australian shepherd and she is just four months old. Though she is a "mini" supposedly, she just keeps on growing...except for her head or so it seems. It sounds odd but really it just makes her even cuter. She really is a strange little creature. Her favorite past time includes collecting any and every item from the house and taking it outside. She doesn't necessarily chew on these things, she just wants them outside with her...who even knows. She also has a vast water bottle collection, so no more spending money on toys! Our favorite things about her: 

• She runs sideways (possibly due to her docked tail a.k.a her "nubbin"...which is also a favorite of ours)
• She can't jump onto things like the couch (she uses only upper body strength to pull herself up)
• She has the biggest and squishiest paws on the planet!
• She loves to be held (especially when we go on walks. And by we I mean me and Casey apparently)
• She gives lots of kisses
• She loves the snow
• Her butt looks like a bear's bottom
• She is afraid of everything...the broom, ironing boards, suitcases, loud noises, laundry baskets, basketballs etc.
• And she likes to sit on other dogs

First time we saw her!

First bath

Happy Valentines! (notice the size difference!)

That pretty much sums up our current life status. Everything is nice and calm, which is just how we like it!

Love, 

Us

I think we have officially achieved married people status. This last week has been a real doozy for the two of us!

I seem to have come down with some sort of flu bug. Sunday night/Monday were hard. I was back and forth from the bathroom a total of nine times and sleep was just not an option. I will spare you the details but just know that I hit what I would like to call, "The Simultaneous Trifecta" (which includes my visit from mother nature). Let your imagination run with that.

Thus is the reason we are now even more married than before. Casey has now seen and heard the worst of the worst! And the reason for this post really, is to tell you all of his magnificent-ness; and not in a bragging sort of way, in just a "this is true love" sort of way.

As he tells it, Casey himself has not thrown up since a young age. Because of this he has a great fear of doing such and has zero to no tolerance for those that do, or pretend to. So you can imagine as the night unfolded I was doing my best to shield him from my exorcist-like behaviors. Alas, I failed. He knew immediately what was happening and he went right into action! He helped clean (and I mean clean EVERYTHING...he even made sure I had a newly clean bucket with me at all times, did all of the laundry and much of the disinfecting throughout the process), made a phone call to the parents, went to get the meds, called the parents again, informed my employers, brought me drinks, brought me movies, got me blankets, tucked me in and slept on the most uncomfortable couch in the world for a man his size and then later the floor...just because he didn't want me to be alone or get more sick.

Of course he had his moments of shock and awe, but those were quickly squashed with medicine and closed eyes. We are safe to say he did not catch this crazyness...yet! And I hope he doesn't because I can't be the mom that he was that night/day. I had no idea he was even capable of all of this! Am I lucky or what?

So that is the latest glimpse into our silly life. Enjoy!

Love,
US

Classy Living

Before we got married and while we were apartment shopping, everyone kept telling us that our first place was going to be where we learned some of our biggest life lessons. We knew we needed to start out small, so by no means were we reaching for the stars here. So with the wisdom of so many, we chose an apartment and here we are...

I would like to take this opportunity to record some of the funny little things about this apartment that shall be passed along to our kin one day. My grandma Sheri told us that without these kinds of experiences we would be doing our children a huge disservice. Let it begin!

• BUGS! There are bugs everywhere, and on more than one occasion, they have crawled across me during movie night. We are not talking just spiders people. We have beetles, and box elder bugs (typical Bountiful), fruit flies (which is unexplained since we don't have any fruit like, or food like things here) and my personal favorite: Centipedes! Lovely right? They feel very nice on the skin...but even better smashed and in the toilet. 
• Side note: We had a major bug attack while watching the Money Pit (slightly ironic). We could both here wings flapping...so we turned on the light and I saw a gigantic spider run across the carpet! Then we killed it! But we never found the source of the flapping...

• GARBAGE WATER! I have always been a "water from the fridge" kind of girl, so the whole tap water thing didn't suit me well. We bought a filtered water pitcher, but the tap just smelled. And smelled. And smelled. We then switched to bottled water. A couple of days later the gym was handing out free water testing kits, I grabbed about 5. We sent one in and learned that our water is definitely not suitable for drinking...it isn't suitable for anything. 

•  THERMOSTAT! We have no control over the thermostat. But we do have a ceiling fan that is just a few spins away from blast off...somebody call NASA!

In all seriousness we are loving living here. We are laugh about these things more and more everyday. It is all just too good in a way because it will make our stories that much better. If anyone has any suggestions on how to set a major bug trap, just let me know!

Love,
Us

Life on the Couch

It has really been so refreshing to see everyone's posts about Conference these last couple of days. What kind of blogger would I be if I didn't follow in their footsteps? 

We loved conference! We love any opportunity to sit on our butts and watch TV (really though...) but this weekend was the mega-wonderful couch potato weekend, and next April will be the same. The messages of encouragement and optimism really left an imprint on the both of us. That, and whatever was said at priesthood to make Casey come home and repeat, "You are beautiful, and I value you...and I can't remember the rest." Ha! That is our kind of love. 

Odd that today we both wore the same clothes that we did last conference? Interesting fact...

Anyhow, I love walking away from these special weekends feeling like I am going to accomplish everything ever. Hopefully this time I will really do my best to do so, along with Casey! Heaven knows that without him I wouldn't even be able to tie my shoes. 

Love,

Us

It's October?

We have hardly had any time to recover from Summer! It is like school and work decided to throw up all over the both of us.  In my attempt to avoid homework, I have decided to post.

So far the beginning of fall has been like a new door for our married life. So far we have football, homework, football and homework. It will all be good in the long run though! We have some great new adventures with school beginning next semester. Changes that will be refreshing!

We are definitely in a wonderful place right now! I can't even begin to explain how exciting it is to be decorating and celebrating the holidays and what not in my own family dwelling. Casey thinks I am nuts but I have already found a smallish Christmas tree and such for us. This is history people! Every holiday must be taken seriously! And of course I know it is only October, but October is just the beginning. The beginning of a giant 3 month period of time called "Family Parties". This encompasses November and December as well. So much has to happen within these months that you may fall behind on your craftiness. In short, you have to get your crap together now before the celebration days are gone.

More recently we have been serving as primary teachers in our ward. We teach the 6/7 year old's every Sunday! It has already proven to be an interesting calling for us. We have even had some controversial experiences believe it or not. And the "problem" child we were given has actually been our favorite..? Figure that one out! I digress...we gave the kids some time to tell us about the highlight of their last week. This particular kid chose to tell us about his day and he did not even hesitate! He said, "My mom went crrraaaaazzzzzyyyyy this morning!" And then he continued with his story about his sweet mom who was just having one of those mornings...anyhow I barely heard him because I was laughing so hard.

Safe to say we have been happily busy and we cherish our weekends more than anything at this point! Hopefully this will help to get us posting again...or inspire us to send out our Thank You cards already....Only time will tell...

Love,
Us

Up to date

It seems so crazy that it is already August! I have no idea where the summer went. This last month better be good!

We've really been enjoying the last couple months of togetherness though. Particularly this month with the Olympics. We consider ourselves some major volleyball fans now...because we totally need another excuse to watch TV. We snuggle up with some slightly healthy snacks and tape our eyes open so we don't miss a thing. Now if we only had a fort...that would be something.

Because it as gone so fast it feels like a major time lapse has happened. Hard to believe we are already at this point.This whole last week has been one of great celebration for Casey and myself! We have officially been inseparable for a year now. SOOOO sappy but hey, when you meet your sweetheart, it's just how it works. I guess you could say we celebrated with a week full of pathetic athletic attempts (on my part at least). After the great tennis net fiasco of 2012, we have been pushing ourselves back into the gym. I also consider our trip to Seven Peaks to be somewhat of a daunting task. I called it our water slide date. We have never before ridden the water slides! But today we did! And it was so much fun! So we are going again next week! And forever! Until we contract a disease from that place which is bound to happen, right?

Anyhow, we are ready to finish out the summer strong! We have a lot coming up this fall with school and such so this final stretch of freedom will be much needed. At least now we can help each other meander through school. That will be a nice change.

Stay tuned for our report back on our NANNY BABY SLEEPOVER! Yes this is really happening. My dreams are coming true!

Love,
Us

This is not me. But it is very similar to me.

Bear Lakey!

We had a great return to the Lake! It was Casey's first year, and I think he managed to have a wonderful time amongst the crazies.

Casey golfed every morning and did better each time. I went to the beach every morning and got more sun each time. It was perfect! We even scored some quality floaties for the water, and also caught some rays sitting on the giant island floaty via the Welch family.

Casey's favorite part was of course the wave runners. He got to go out all by himself! And then there was a small almost accident between some of the cousins but that is ok because it was a small almost accident. We also tried our hands at volleyball, which was a great success. Usually the fam isn't prone to such great physical feats but this year was different, and it was a marvelous time. 

Following the nightly dinner routine we spent some time at La Beau's because that is just what you do. And then we dabbled in some card games like Tribal Uno and Mormon Bridge. What a delight!

In the history of family vacations, this is the ultimate family vacation. It is better than Christmas. Every year brings new memories and better relationships than the year before. I am so happy Casey gets to be in on the fun now!

We really had a great time up at the lake and are already looking forward to whatever next year brings! 

Casey's thoughts on the matter: It was fun. I had corndogs.

Love, 

Us