Our Costumes

We decided to be Robin Hood and Maid Marion this year. We started with an ugly dress, a dress shirt, a sheet, 2 belts, 2 pairs of pants, several sticks, and some feathers.

Brandon turned one of the pairs of pants into a quiver for the arrows he made with the sticks.

I modified the ugly dress with the sheet. (Yes that is a newspaper pattern)

Brandon doesn't believe in using a seam ripper. He prefers a clamp and an exact-o knife. He claims it saved him a lot of time (he's right too)

This is the pattern I made for the sleeves of the dress.

Me sewing the dress waistband

Brandon sewing his hat. (He did his whole costume completely by himself. He can even thread the machine by himself.)

And here is the finished product.

We won "Best Theme" at our ward Halloween party and "Best Costume" at his family's party.

Halloween Cake 2.0

Remember this cake? Well that was the 1.0 version. We put together the 2.0 version last night.
Now we get to eat it tonight!!

Imagine if we had a weeks notice . . .

We found out about our ward Halloween party Wednesday night. We also found out that they wanted us to put together a picture backdrop. Naturally we said yes! Here is what we were able to put together with 48 hours notice.



We are still keeping our costumes a secret so I'll post those pics later :)

Utah or Africa?

Brandon and I like to see some of the amazing things that Utah has to offer. We also like to do things that are free. Today we got to do both. We went to the Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve near Layton, UT. It was such a beautiful, calm place. I loved hearing the wind in the grass. It felt like we were miles away from Utah. I joked that it felt like Africa. If you have the chance you should go here too. http://www.mitigationcommission.gov/wetlands/wetlands_layton.html

Going to the Dump

Yesterday I had some free time and my family had some junk. So we got together and went to the dump.
My dad helped me load the jeep with two old twin mattresses, some old head boards, and a broken dresser.

The back of the jeep couldn't close on its own so we had to tie it shut.

We were hoping to leave before my mom got home so we could surprise her. We wrote her a note like we stole the junk.

But she got home just as we were about to leave.

Mom wanted to be the one to throw the junk away so she talked my dad into staying home while she rode in the passenger seat.

Then she had the fun of helping me throw the stuff into the giant pit. Instant gratification for only 8 dollars!

Thanks mom and dad for helping fill some time on a Saturday. I would have been completely bored otherwise.

Fall Photo Shoot

Brandon and I have been married for almost 2 and a half years. I figured it was time to get some pictures of us together that weren't wedding pictures. So I invited my dad up to Logan to look at the fall leaves and to go on a photo shoot. He quickly agreed.

Here are some of my favorite pics.

This is up Green Canyon. It's the same canyon we took engagement pictures for Emily and David last year.

My sister Hillary came with too.

It was partially her photo shoot too.

I took this picture of Hillary.

Brandon Passed!!!!

As of last Monday Brandon is officially Instrument Rated. Which means he can fly by only using the instruments in his airplane. (Imagine driving a car without being able to see outside the car and you only the speedometer, odometer, and a GPS to guild you to your destination) This means he can fly in clouds. He has worked on this rating in one way or another for the past 4 years. But it has only been the last 6 months that we have seen any real progress in USU actually helping him learn how to fly instrument. With that in mind I modified the following Calvin and Hobbs comic. (Click on it to make it bigger)
Here Brandon is with his temporary instrument licence. The permanent hard copy should come in the mail soon.
Here Brandon is with the DVD of the first season of the TV show Tail Spin.

I bought this for him for Christmas of 2007 as the anticipated reward for him passing instrument. Neither of us realised it would be almost 2 years before we could open it.

Now that Brandon has passed instrument we can start on Commercial Flight. This shouldn't take as long as instrument.