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.