The Picture Frames: How we did it

Way back in August I planned a trip to Bear Lake with Brandon's family. Brandon and I had gone to the lake the year before with my family and we knew that there were tons of beautiful shells there. We also knew from experience that the urge to take the shells home is just too strong. No matter how much you tell yourself that you can't use the shells you will always end up taking home at least a handful. The trouble is that once you get home there is nothing you can do with the shells. Well Brandon and I decided a head of time what we would do with the beautiful shells. We would use them to decorate picture frames for the pictures we took of Bear Lake. We also decided that for Christmas we would make a picture frame for each family that went with us to Bear Lake.

Well I guess these presents were a hit. And from what I hear no one was able to figure out how we got the picture frames to look like sand. So read along and discover our secrets.

First we bought five wood picture frames at DI. The total cost was under $5.
Then we sanded each frame. (Brandon is a much better sander than I am)

After sanding we primed the frames with spray on primer. In this picture I am in my painting clothes. I didn't get any paint on me, but I know if I hadn't changed I would have got paint all over my nice clothes.

Here is the big secret, we used sand textured spray paint to make the frames look like they had real sand on them. We cut up cardboard from cereal boxes and placed that where the glass would go. That way the sand wouldn't get in the way of the glass. I'm glad we thought to do that since the spray on sand is just like read sand -- It gets every where. I am so pleased with how that spray sand worked. I was hoping that the frames would look like they had sand on them, instead they look like they are molded from sand. I think the cost of the spray was about $6 dollars. We looked for it at Micheal's but couldn't find it there so we got it at Lowes.

Next we glued the shells on. Months earlier at Bear Lake we had picked out individual shells that we thought were pretty. We had also grabbed 2 handfuls of "crappy" shells that we used as background shells. Even most of those crappy shells were pretty.

Originally we planned on using hot glue to glue the shells on, but we had concerns about how well that glue would bond the shells to a rough surface. So we ended up buying a glue called Bond 6000 (or something like that). It had warnings that it was known to the state of California to cause cancer so we figured it had to be a good glue. It was! It didn't dry as fast as hot glue so we could work with it longer. Also it wasn't hot so we could get it on our fingers without burning them (though according to the label we probably will have kidney damage).

The only thing left to do was to add pictures. I had previously created the collages in photo shop. I made each one different. We printed them out at Smith's Marketplace.

This was such a fun project to do after work. We worked on it almost every night in December. I think the total cost was about $35 for five.

Christmas

It was so fun to decorate the apartment for Christmas. Last year we hardly had any room and only set up half our tree. This year we had plenty of room.

Christmas itself was great. We spent Christmas eve at Brandon's parents and then drove up to Logan that night. Then we spent the next four days just hanging out together in our own apartment. I was so relaxed. I was especially happy that we could be in such a nice place instead of out in the snow. I'm glad we decided to spend time with ourselves instead of spending 4 days trying to split time with our two families and dealing with terrible weather.

What a difference a haircut makes

I don't know when I decided to grow out my hair. All I know is that somehow I ended up with long hair. For the past few months I have been debating what I wanted to do with it. I went back and forth between wanting to cut it all off or just get it trimmed up. On Saturday I decided that I wanted to keep the length but re-layer my hair and add bangs. I am so happy with my decision! My blah long hair that really did not look that great was instantly cute. I'm now excited to get up in the morning and do my hair.

Free broken vacumn = hours of entertainment for Brandon

Brandon and I spent the night at home working on separate projects. I was using photoshop on the computer and sitting on the chair that you can see in the lower right corner. I knew Brandon was behind me, trying to fix the motor to a wet dry vacuum. Throughout the night he would show me something he had discovered or had done. I was so absorbed in my project that I did not notice the huge pile of tools and pieces that was accumulating on the floor behind me. It wasn't until I walked out of the room and then came back in that I saw just how much Brandon had done. (To be fair the mess in the top right corner is mine)

This second picture looks like something out of the I-spy books. Can you find a pocket knife, an iron, a pair of boots, a hammer, pliers, glue, and a bunch of screws?

This mess was not in vain. At the beginning of the night the vacuum didn't work at all and it was filthy. By 10 o'clock Brandon had figured out what was wrong in the motor and had fixed it. He also was cleaning the whole thing as he went. The whole thing should be back together tonight.

One year after graduation

When I started my Sr year of High School I had no idea where I would go to college or what I wanted to do with my life. ( I also wasn't sure I would graduate from high School, but luckily I turned that around.)

During my Sr year I applied and was accepted to Snow College. I went there for 2 years and earned an Associates Degree. After Snow I went to the Salt Lake Community College for 2 semesters and picked up a few classes for a fraction of the cost that I would have paid at Utah State. After SLCC I finally transferred to USU. I was planning on staying there for 2 years and getting a degree in Managerial Economics. However, I quickly realized that I was sick of school and changed my major to Pre-law Economics; which, despite its impressive sounding name, was a whole lot less work. A year and a half later I was done with school.

A few weeks after graduation I realized that I had successfully earned a Bachelors degree, but I'd failed to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

Sure I was married, and had a great full time job, but I seemed to be missing something. Basically I didn't know how to live without school. It was disconcerting to know that I did not have a project I should be working on, or a book I should be reading. Going back to school was out of the question because I was sick of all the busy work. Instead I started to find hobbies and talents that I'd forgotten about during all the years of homework.

So here is a list of some of the things I have done this past year:
Coordinated Emily's wedding
Went camping in Yellowstone with Brandon for our anniversary
Moved to a town house
Past off all my certifications at work
Read all the Anne of Green Gable's books
Painted bookcases (this was not a small job)
Planned a trip to Bear Lake with Brandon's family
Started a Blog
Flew to Rexburg and back for the Fourth of July (Brandon flew the plane)
Done a lot of Photo shop projects

In a lot of ways I am still trying to figure out what I like to do and/or what I am good at doing. But I am doing better than back in January when I realised I had NOTHING to do while Brandon worked on home work.

A Weekend at Home

For the first time in 5 weeks we got to spend a Saturday in our own apartment. The last five weeks have been very fun and full of exciting things to do; but I have been longing for a Saturday where I could sleep in, stay in my pajamas, and not have to be ANYWHERE. I finally got it.

We slept in until about 9:30 and then ate breakfast. Then Brandon cleaned the kitchen while I cleaned/decorated the living room. Our living room was having some season issues. I had my pink and yellow wedding flowers through out the room, Emily's wedding leaves around the banister, and the Christmas tree set up. I took out anything that was spring colored and then only used red fall leaves. I also set up the rest of the Christmas stuff. I'd put pictures on here but I forgot to put them on my jump drive.

So after the downstairs was clean Brandon and I finally changed out of our pajamas and went for a walk downtown. It had snowed most of the morning, so we were all bundled up and had fun walking in the snow. We were shopping for a water purifying pump for our camping/emergency preparedness supplies, but all the pumps we saw were more than we expected. We'll try again at some of the camping stores in Salt Lake.

We came home and made dinner and then went to the "Messiah" preformed at the Logan Tabernacle. We sat up at the very top at the balcony and could look down on the whole choir and orchestra. They did a very good job. Thanks to my brother Billy I could pick out the french horn parts. I especially liked watching the Bass player. He was very good. I kept thinking to myself, I could do that. But then I would remember that it has been more than 5 years since I touched a String Bass. Still during the Hallelujah chorus I knew that I once had been able to play that song as well as the person I was watching. I remember that back in 8th grade when I played it for the first time I had had no idea what I was doing. Then I played it every year until my Sr year when I basically had the song memorised.

All in all it was a great day and I am so happy we have next Saturday free as well.

Cheysi is home!

Cheysi is the sister missionary on the left. ( I have a sneaking suspicion that the new "Sun Maid Raisin" girl used Cheysi's smile as a model.

I am so happy to know that Cheysi is back from her mission to Russia. The past year and a half has gone by quickly, but not quickly enough.

For those of you who don't know, Cheysi is one of my very best friends. Outside of Brandon and my family I love Cheysi the most. We worked together my first year at Snow Fun, but we didn't really get to know each other well that summer. We both knew a girl named Melissa who we both didn't like, but we thought the other was friends with. Then the last week I lived in Ephraim we discovered that we were not friends with Melissa. (Funny what brings you together)

Then the next summer I ran into Cheysi right away. All she could say was "You're back, You're back!" We were pretty much inseparable the rest of the summer. Our numbers for Snow fun were right by each other so we were always assigned together. We got to co-host my Stake when they came for Youth Conference. We also basically ran the ropes course the entire month of August too. I lived with Cheysi's family for about 3 weeks and it was so fun to be her "sister."

Then all too soon the summer ended and it was time for me to move to Logan. I could sense that my life was at a crossroads and that I probably would get married in the next year, and Cheysi was hoping to go on a mission. I never even really said good bye to her. I was asleep when she left for work, and she hadn't come home when I had to leave Ephraim. That was probably the best way to do it though since we would have bawled our eyes out. I haven't seen her since then

Cheysi left for the MTC about a week before I got married. We've kept up through letters and e-mails. She always has the most positive attitude. She got home yesterday, now I can't wait to see her!

German Pancakes

This is what we had for breakfast the morning after Christmas Under the Tree

German Pancakes

1/4 stick of butter

6 eggs
1 cup of milk
1 cup of flour
1/4 tsp of salt

Melt butter in a glass pan.

Mix other ingredients well and pure into pan on top of melted butter.

Cook in oven on 350 (this may need to be higher, our over cooks hotter than normal) for about 30 minutes.

(We made two triple batches)

Christmas Under the Tree

Brandon's family had their annual "Christmas Under the Tree" night on Friday. This was the third year that I've gone and it was also the best year so far. The reason it was so good this year was that the little kids were able to participate. Last year they were either too little or too wound up to do much.

Christmas under the tree started when Brandon and his siblings were little. His mom started it as an outlet for Christmas anticipation (waiting all month for Dec 25th is hard when you are a kid) and a way to teach her children about the true meaning of Christmas. Even when the kids got older they continued the tradition, and now it includes grandchildren.

The night started off with a "South of the border Christmas Party for Brandon's Dad's side of the family. We had tacos and played games. We even had a pinata for the little kids.

Then after the extended family when home it was time for Christmas under the tree. We all got into our pajamas and met in the living room. Then Brandon's dad ready the Christmas story out of the Bible. As certain parts of the story were read different family members would place their respective Nativity Scene characters into the Stable. It was so cute to see my nephews set up the sheep and shepards so that every piece could see the baby Jesus. Brandon has been in charge of the wise men since forever so that was the part that we did.

After the Christmas story each family shared a Christmas themed thing. We showed a Christmas commercial and earlier we had set up my Grandpa's telescope to show everyone Jupiter and Venus.

Then Brandon's mom read us a Christmas story about two twins who try to catch Santa Claus. The book has some hidden glow in the dark pictures and the kids loved that.

The official part of the night ended with Brandon's mom giving out the ornaments that she hand painted. Usually everyone gets 1 ornament. This year she gave every family at least 5 ornaments. She started working on them all in the summer. (When we filmed DI Fever II at her house over the 4th of July weekend she was working on them)

After we were done in the living room we went downstairs to sleep altogether in the family room. I think we finally fell asleep around 1:30

It was so fun! Thanks to everyone for coming.

Better than the lights at Temple Square?

Friday was a pretty horrible day at work, and Brandon could sense that as soon as he picked me up. We were planning on going straight to Salt Lake, but Brandon decided to cheer me up first. He didn't tell me that though. As we drove through Sardine Canyon I was in a pretty bad mood. When we got to Brigham City, Brandon moved into the lane to make a left turn onto Highway 89 instead of going continuing on to get on to I-15. I thought to myself, "why does he want to go the long way, traffic shouldn't be too bad on I-15? I guess he wants to go through Ogden for some reason. Why does he want to go there?" And then it hit me where we were going. We were going to the Ogden City Christmas Village. Instantly I was in a better mood.

Two years ago when we were still dating we had gone on an all day date to Ogden. We'd visited the Ogden train museum, saw a concert that Billy was in, ate dinner at a park, and gone to see the Ogden Christmas village. That date was supper fun and we've always planned on going back to the Christmas Village, but kept forgetting.

So Friday night we enjoyed all the cute little shops, houses, libraries, schools, workshops etc at the Ogden Municipal Gardens. Here are some of pictures of the highlights.

Here I am outside of one of the little houses. The amount of detail that goes into these houses is amazing.

This display took fish tanks and set up a different scene in each window.

Brandon and I both decided that we wanted to live in this house.

These last three pictures show my favorite scene of all. It was up two years ago too.

Take a careful look at the menu in the picture above. Meltaway Chili has watch out snowmen written next to it.

This picture shows what happens when one snowman eats the chili.

And here is his puddle.

I'm so glad Brandon was smart enough to take me here, and help me get in a better mood for the weekend.

I recommend coming here to see all the houses for yourself. It was really crowded when we were there at around 7:00 on Friday. If you plan to come with little kids I would either come on a week night or come early in the evening so that they can see everything without getting trampled.

More about Brandon

Brandon had to do a group project for his managing orgs and peeps class. (that's what I call MHR Managing organisations and people). The group decided to do a 3 on 3 basketball tournament. The day of the tournament Brandon was in charge of picking up one of the group members. The group member was a girl from China. Brandon picked her up and they went to help out at the tournament. Brandon is not a huge fan of basketball-- I'm not even sure if he is a fan. So he spent most of the day making sure there was enough Gatorade. Brandon says that he felt left out a lot when he was younger so he always tries to talk to everyone. He knew that the girl from China was probably feeling left out so he spent the day talking to her too. He learned how to say simple words in Chinese and taught her the meaning of odd American sayings.

After the project was complete Brandon told me that he was thinking about giving the girl a Book of Mormon. On Monday he bought one and gave it to her after class. She was so surprised that someone would give her a gift. I'm impressed that he gave it to her. I don't think I would be that brave.

How to hide a sander

Brandon turned 26 yesterday. I've never been great at giving him birthday presents. Two years ago the first birthday I celebrated with him was about 5 days after we decided to become boyfriend and girlfriend. And last year we had just gone down to Arizona for his twin brother's wedding. I don't even remember what I gave him for that birthday. ( I have a sneaking horror that I didn't get him anything!) So this year I knew I had to do a good job. A few months ago he told me he wanted a sander he even showed me what kind he wanted. I still had to get the serial number from him to make sure I had the right one.

I ordered the sander online and was about to have it shipped to our apartment when I realized that with Emily's wedding we wouldn't be at the apartment much. I didn't want the package to sit on the doorstep for days so I sent the package to my parents house instead. Then I got a sneaky idea. With the package going to may parents house Brandon wouldn't know the sander had been delivered. I could pretend that I hadn't even ordered it yet. So I told Brandon that we couldn't afford the sander with this paycheck but we could get it with the next one.

Well the package showed up at my parents house and I had my Mom wrap it like a wedding present. I even had her put a card on it saying, "to Emily and David from Uncle Spencer." Brandon and I were in charge of taking the wedding presents from Salt Lake to Logan where they would be picked up by Emily and David after their honeymoon. It was simple to add the fake wedding present to the stack of presents. Brandon even asked me, "whose Uncle Spencer?" I told him that he was some relative that we didn't really see a lot but had sent a present to the house. Brandon bought it without batting an eye.

Once the presents were in a pile in our living room I took out the fake present and hid it in a cupboard. Yesterday I pulled it out and gave it to Brandon. He was totally surprised by a sander. I think he was even more surprised by the fact that I was able to keep a secret from him for over three weeks.

The Brandon who saved Thanksgiving

What would we do without Brandon? Probably have pizza for Thanksgiving dinner.

With Emily's wedding last week my family was seriously considering having pizza instead of the traditional food. I was all for the pizza idea because I don't really like the usual thanksgiving food. However my Dad was pretty vocal about his hatred of pizza -- especailly pizza on Thanksgiving. Also my Mom realized that she already had most of the ingrediants for a Thanksgiving dinner. So Wednesday we decided to have a real Thanksgiving dinner.

But who would cook it? Emily, our usual cook, was on her honeymoon. Lindsey, who usually makes the gravy and greenbean caserol, had to work the day after thanksgiving so wouldn't be coming up from Ceder City. My talents lie outside the kitchen (my traditional job is to keep Billy happy) so I couldn't be expected to make an entire Thanksgiving dinner. Mom didn't want to have to do the whole meal herself and she didn't want Dad fussing around in the kitchen either. And Hillary is 15, she shouldn't be expected to make the meal. The only person left was Brandon.

Fortunately Brandon loves Thanksgiving! It is his favorite holiday. He was in seventh heaven making suffing and getting the turkey in the oven. Yesterday he made a pumpkin and a peach pie. His enthusiasim for making Thanksgiving food even inspired me to make the mashed potatoes (also the fact that I hate instant mashed potates and I was the only one motivated to make real mashed potatoes) Dad brought home Lion House rolls from work. Mom made green bean casserol and also ran to the store for aluminum foil some other last minute items. It all added up to a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. Especially when you realize that wednesday morning we were planning on pizza. And it would not have been possible without Brandon.

I also helped decorate. (I have plenty of fall things these days)

Am I ready for the future?

About three years ago I was in a business communications class. I was put on a team that had to write a paper about how technology was changing business communications. I remember that part of the paper was on Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). As I wrote the paper I thought to myself, "like I will ever use this crazy futuristic technology." Well, I have now used VOIP.

It all started with the amount of phone calls I took at work. I am a billing manager at a growing utility billing company. We have a huge focus on Customer service and so we do not have a phone trees or any of that "push 1 for balance" crap. Every person who calls in during business hours should get a live person right away. We are still growing and so our customer service department is not able to answer every call that comes in. So how do you insure that people calling in get a live person when the customer service department can't answer every call? You get the billing managers to take calls on top of all their other responsibilities.

I knew this when I got the job, and I was fine with it for the most part. I was told that I would start out at the bottom of the billing manager phone que and I would move up the que as more people were hired under me. My first few months everything went according to plan, but then I started to get more calls than when I first started. It wasn't just me, everyone was taking more calls.

The next few months were filled with a lot of discord between the billing department and the customer service department. We insisted that they were not taking as many calls as they said they were and they maintained that they were taking plenty of calls. Finally we discovered that the phone tracking software itself was inaccurate.

So then the company decided to buy new phones. All the old traditional phones with receivers would be replaced with new headset phones that are connected to the computers. I was not too happy about that announcement. I didn't want to wear a headset. But really what could I do? I wanted to take less calls, but the old system couldn't tell the company how many calls I was taking. Finally I accepted my fate.

The IT department officially hooked up my phone today. I was pretty ornery about it. As one of the IT guys explained how my new phone worked I kept making comments about how the soft phone on my monitor was going to take up important space. I joked that I would need another monitor (I already have two). I said I probably wasn't technologically competent enough for this system. I asked how I was expected use a phone on my computer when my computer usually froze during the busy billing days. Basically I was trying to make the IT guy as miserable as I was.

Well you know what? The IT guy understood that I was just anxious about the change. He explained the truth about each of my concerns. He showed me that the soft phone really wouldn't be on my screen much so I wouldn't need to worry about it taking up space. He assured me the system was easy and that in a week I would feel like I had always been using it. And he told me that the company had changed our band width to handle the VOIP system.

He was so positive about the change that I got all excited to get on the phone. When I took my first call everything went fine. It actually was really nice to have my hands free while I talked on the phone. About the only thing that was odd was that the call felt really surreal since I wasn't holding a receiver. So I guess I will get used to this. It is kind of odd to have to dial with my mouse on the monitor on the soft phone. But I will get used to it. And if I am lucky the company will soon know how many Customer Service Reps to hire so I can take less calls.

Emily's Wedding

Oh, how can I even begin to describe this weekend? I have never been more tired or sore than I was on Saturday Night, but I have also never been more proud of myself. Both Brandon and I put incredible amounts of time into this wedding and I am happy to say that it all paid off. Here are some pictures detailing our efforts and our successes.

Here I am with my sister Hillary, my cousin Melissa, and Emily's amazing bouquet. Emily worked for the JSMB floral department and so she got all of her flowers and centerpieces done for a fraction of the real cost.

Here are all the siblings/in-laws together. Hard to believe that 2 and 1/2 years ago we didn't even know Brandon, John, or David.

I love how vintage Emily's dress looks. She bought the dress about 3 days after getting engaged. My grandma sent her the gloves, Hillary made her jewelery and the hat.

They got married at 8:20 AM and were outside taking pictures around 9:00. I've heard horror stories about people waiting forever for a chance to take pictures at the Salt Lake Temple. But nothing like that happened with this wedding. Everything went really well.

After pictures at the temple we all went to the wedding luncheon at Chuck-o-Rama. Then Brandon and I picked up all the reception food from the JSMB. Brandon and I took the food to the stake center in Kearns. We were so tired we took a nap in the floor of the room next to the kitchen (We had been up until 1:00 the night before working on setting up the reception) After the nap we began to put final touches on the reception. Here are the pictures.

This back drop is the most artistic thing I have ever done. Emily and I saw something like it at a bridal fair. I got the branches from my in-law tree that died. The brown Christmas ornaments are mine and I bought the green ones from a dollar store (5 for a dollar). I borrowed the lanterns from my mother in law. The arch I borrowed from my friend. The leaf garlands I bought at Mic heals as well as the leaves that are on the branches. The little fence posts I borrowed from another friend and the rope I bought at Lowes. There were times when I was planning this backdrop out that I would think to myself, "I must be crazy! I'm going to make a backdrop out of Sticks?!" I'm really glad that my gamble paid off. I think the backdrop looked amazing.

Originally the cake was going to be brown. I told Emily that if she wanted a brown cake she needed to put something light behind it so that the cake wouldn't get lost on the brown walls of the church. We decided to use the waterfall backdrop Brandon made for our wedding reception. The cake changed colors but we still used the backdrop. My mother-in-law made the cake and did a wonderful job.

Billy played his french horn during the first part of the reception. He sounded amazing. He had his own little gazebo arch to sit in. My Dad had four separate videos playing different segments of the wedding video. This one is showing the slide show of pictures of Emily and David growing up.
Here is a picture of the whole cultural hall. We have tulle hanging from the ceiling. Brandon was a genius to figure out how to get the tulle up. We hung fall leaves with safely pins and fishing line.

This is one of the ten centerpieces. Again this was from the JSMB floral department. (Don't worry the candles are fake) And here are the Bridesmaids. My mom made these dresses. The shoes sure were cute but they hurt so bad.

So now it is all over. I just want to thank everyone who helped out. I couldn't have done it without all the people who volunteered and the things I was able to borrow. At the end of the night when everything was put away, my back hurt horribly, my feet had blisters, and I was about to cry from exhalation I turned to Brandon and said, "we should do a Christmas party." It think I love this stuff.