Joel & Kalli

it's been a while.....

2012-01-21T21:27:00.000-08:00

Sooooo.......it's been a while......how bout we just pretend like that whole 3 month plus hiatus never happened and pick up where we left off shall we?

If you haven't heard, we're having a baby! The blog is a little late to the party considering I only have about 3 months left (crazy!). I'm still having a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that I get to be a Mom....we had been waiting and waiting for this to happen for sooooo long that it's kind of hard for my little brain to change from the mind set of "I want a baby" to "I'm HAVING a baby!"....ahhh those are beautiful words!

This little boy Smith (we're having a boy by the way!! wooot!) has been having quite the growth spurt since Thanksgiving. I think all that turkey must have been a jump start to his system or something because I feel like we're growing so fast!

I was pretty nauseous for the first trimester but it wasn't anything that a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit from McDonalds couldn't fix. Eating one for breakfast was the only way I could be guaranteed a nausea free day, very strange especially considering how healthy I was eating before getting pregnant...all healthy eating was out the window! No green smoothies or almonds would touch my lips for the next few months....when you feel sick you do what works I guess. Most of my second trimester was awesome! I felt great, was sleeping a full 8-9 hrs a night straight through, and got my appetite back which was great. Sadly that wonderful streak only lasted a couple months and I've moved on to the "uncomfortable" phase....the baby seems to have a penchant for squeezing off an important blood vessel because sitting down longer than 10 min., and laying down on any side but my left, are no longer relaxing or comfortable.....aaahhhh the days of sleeping on my back, how I miss those.... He also seems to have Joel's appetite because my body now REQUIRES me to get up at least twice a night to eat. I have never experienced anything like it, I wake up with a pounding heart and a horrible feeling in my stomach that will not go away until I've had my protein fix. Caaarazy..... thank goodness there is a cure for all these maladies called childbirth :).

Despite these not so fun things, I know things could be much much worse and the fact that we get a baby at the end of all this more than makes up for any discomfort. We feel so blessed to be looking forward to our little baby arriving and are so thankful for all the prayers and fasting done by our family and friends, it really is a miracle.

Weeks 17-20

Weeks 22-25

I'm stll a blogger!

2011-10-07T13:03:00.000-07:00

Blogging has definitely fallen off the map in our family, but I still believe! So, to prove I still think blogging is relevant, and just so we don't have 2 straight Anniversary posts (4 years next week!), I will post a few cool pictures I have taken lately. On occasion I take Kalli's backup camera and take some pictures of my own. So here they are:

The Smith family goes on a hike every Labor Day. These first ones are from that hike up Alta Ski Resort.

I love the slip-on/velcro fad!

Over the summer we went to My Aunt Sue's Wyoming ranch and had a blast. This was the starry sky we slept under for a couple nights. Me and Kalli stayed up late and got this beauty!

These next pictures are from the Heaps/Heugly camping trip to Strawberry Reservoir over the Summer

The camera loves this guy!

Yep, we ate them!

3rd anniversary

2011-03-03T17:11:00.000-08:00

We had such a fun anniversary, I wanted to do a little journal post to remember it.
We went to the SL Temple that morning to do sealings and then went to the Lion House Pantry for lunch. I don't remember what we had but do remember it was gooooood. .
I did a photo shoot up Big Cottonwood Canyon that evening so we stayed up there after and ate dinner and had a fire.
This cave was right above our site, it was huge inside and totally freaky! Joel went in, I did not.

Joel started the fire while I took pics of rocks.

We wanted to make things super low stress so we ran to the store at the mouth of the canyon and bought a bunch of easy stuff. We cooked biscuits on roasting sticks, baked apples, roasted hot dogs, ate fizz candy,

and popped our first jiffy pop! yum.

Joel, you are my favorite. I love you.

baby camera gets her glory day in the hot sun

2011-03-03T16:44:00.000-08:00

We take our little point and shoot with us when we don't want to carry my camera around. I was going through the photos we've collected a while back and found that we have taken a lot of random pics. You wanna see some???!!! :) Joel thinks not, but I think YES!

First up.....this amazing photo of us. This has caused many a laughing fits at our house over the past few months. Ladies, this is what a wacky wide angle point and shoot lens will do for your ego. I look like Elf when he sits on Poppa Elf's lap. I. am. ginormous.
Please see exibit A:

to prove I haven't grown 2 ft and my head isn't the size of a watermelon...........exibit B:

We went to the Festival of Trees with Katie and Eric back in November and found this beautiful crocheted toy in the gift shop.....what's that? You don't know what this is???

Why it's a Crocheted UFO Spaceship of course! Complete with bonnet wearing six eyed aliens....... "I wont that"

We saw Santa in his summer home.

and many beautiful wreaths.................... so this photo isn't that random, but I am still feeling ginormous and need validation. My outfit rocks, right? ;)

Guess what else is ginormous? This sweet potato (or yam...whatever). Joel appreciates my awkward hand angle.

I think he will also appreciate me posting this photo of him. hehe. HOT

Still Winter!!

2011-02-01T19:40:00.000-08:00

It's about that time of the season where I have to stop and calmly convince myself that it is still winter and it is still going to snow multiple times. And it will still be cold enough that the snow will stick and stay around for a while so I can play in it.

Yes, call me childish, weird, or down right crazy, but I cannot get enough of that beautiful white stuff!! And yes, when it snows, I still get my snow clothes on and go out and play in it (just ask Kalli!). Who knows, when we have kids, I just might be more excited about playing in the snow than they will be.

You might say I'm almost 30 and shouldn't be "playing" in the snow anymore. But you might just be jealous that I still like to play :) So let's all enjoy these SNOWY pictures together as we think about how much we LOVE winter and how it is still going to be around for a long, long, time!!! (Julie, maybe you shouldn't look)

If you didn't stay up late like we did, as these last few pictures show, then you might have missed the "Blizzard 2010". It came and went so fast, no one really noticed it. But for those of us who braved the storm in the middle of the night it was awesome!!

Someone's having fun!

"Christmas past is past"

2011-01-04T11:02:00.000-08:00

Just a few memories from Christmas. It goes so fast I barely remember having it! But January is here and another year begins. Now if only I can get over the flu!

It is day 5 of achy muscles, a fever, sore throat, runny nose, terrible sleep. I now know why people want to get a flu shot - they've probably had the flu in the past couple years and remember how bad it is. I hadn't had it since I was little and I'm thankful that I went as long as I did without it.

This is two straight New Year's Eve celebrations down the drain. Last year we were at the Heaps' cabin and I got the stomach flu! Not that we celebrate the holiday that much anyway, but HERE'S TO A BETTER NEW YEAR next year!!

Larson Cabin 7/10

2010-12-11T17:49:00.000-08:00

Just found these in our files and realized I never posted them! We had such an awesome trip to the Larson cabin this year. It was so gorgeous up there and it was the most relaxing trip we've had in a lonnng time.

Joel played Frisbee golf with Stu and Brianna and their kids and me and my mom hiked along with them for fun.

See if you can spot Joel in the above left pic.

I was having fun checking out all the flora. This is a wild pea! How cute is that! There were tons of gorgeous wild flowers.

It was so fun being able to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa and have them all to ourselves for a couple days! Grandma even taught me some new crochet stiches.

We had fun fishing and enjoying the beautiful views

Joel's catch


Grandpa and I at the Ferrin Reservoir circa 1989

Grandpa and I at the Ferrin Resevoir 2010

Joel's Yearly Tradition

2010-11-12T15:50:00.000-08:00

I have made it an official tradition to drive up the canyon alone early in the season and play in the snow/take winter pictures. I'm kind of thinking about making it a semi-annual tradition because it's so awesome!

Last year I went up about a month earlier and hiked up Brighton ski resort to get some good pictures. I thought it couldn't get any better because it was kind of snowing and foggy. But this year I think I did better. It was the perfect amount of snow (about a foot) and it was lightly snowing the whole time. I love how silent it is in the snow, especially up the canyon. I went on a walk on a pathway and didn't see anyone the whole time. I just enjoyed the pristine nature of Utah in the winter!

I'm sure this seems a little weird for some of you, but I seriously LOVE the snow! It's one of my favorite things ever. So anyway, here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip. I hope you enjoy them as much as me (I'm sure you won't!)

This one looked like Narnia to me, so I made it Narnia!

new{/old} music thursday, because I don't want to wait till monday

2010-11-04T22:29:00.001-07:00

#1 pumps me up. gets my nose to the grindstone. photoshop theme song. it will be worth it.
#2 cause every girl needs some blues. good for getin' your swagger on. thanks sarah b :).
#3 sparkly. love and planets.
#4 dreamy. the good kind of sad song.

July 4th, and 5th

2010-09-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

*I've had this post saved as a "draft" for a couple months now, it's probably about time I post it.

I turned 25 this year. I told someone I was going through a quarter life crisis and they replied with something like "well yeah, if you live to be 100, which you probably won't so you're already past that". Umm thanks......After the reality of that sunk in I was fine lol.

We went boating in the morning with Lindsay, Brian, Brayden, Camryn, and Madi. It was lots of fun!
It was nice and sunny. Look at those sweet cheeks!
Brayden had fun driving the boat.
I tried wakeboarding for the first time.... yep....didn't go so well. check out my face in the second one. I was trying reeeelly hard to get up haha. (ok, for the record, I got up on my 1st try water skiing and rocked it. I also stink at snowboarding but picked up skiing really fast. I think it's the whole being propelled sideways thing that throws me off.)
Joel on the other hand did awesome (of course, right? he's a Smith)
Aww the birthday girl and her honey.
After boating we got Cafe Rio to go and ate it at the park. Yum! We are trying to be thrifty, but since I was playing the birthday card we also got Frozen Yogurt.

Joel already posted about the 4th, but I wanted to add these two pics that he didn't post.

an un-laborus weekend

2010-09-11T21:28:00.000-07:00

Oh man, I have been neglecting the blog for quite some time. I'm so glad Joel keeps it up for me when I slack. I haven't been in the mood to blog lately and haven't really had the time, but tonight I have the blogging bug so I thought I'd better hurry up and post something!
Last weekend was A-mazing. It was so relaxing, so fun, and so nice to be able to spend so much time with our families. It was exactly what we needed!
Saturday we went boating with Lindsay and Brian in the morning, Joel did awesome wakeboarding and is really picking it up quickly. The weather was perfect (except for some choppy water). After boating we went to the Heaps house and had a little bar-b-q/water fun.

Josie and Camryn had fun playing in the buckets of water.

and Hayden and Brayden liked playing with the hoses and kicking the squirting beach ball thing, and i was having so much fun snapping all these water shots. i've been wanting to take pictures in this exact same setting for quite some time (awesome back lit lighting, cute kids, water spraying, dark trees in the back) ...it was all just workin out so nicely

i love these two pics, can't figure out why its HUGE, i'll have to work on it tomorrow.
my dad and mark shot off the water rocket
my mom filled up water balloons and we all had fun playing with them, and...
launching them with the sling shot thing until Joel and Brian found out that we almost hit someones car that lived up the street....hehe.... whoops? (they were trying to launch them into the park across the walking path.)
we went in side after that haha.

On Sunday, Joel and I had a great day at church and then decided to just chill at home. i made lasagna and then we just hung out and watched a movie, it was great!

Monday we woke up and went to breakfast at McDonalds with the Heaps and Hansens then drove over to the Smiths to get ready for the annual Labor Day Hike. It's a Smith tradition that I've been able to participate in for a few years now, we love it!
we went to Mary's lake this year. There was only about half of the lake left, but it was still pretty and we enjoyed our lunch at the top.

{mad props to Joel for taking these next few pics. i like it when my man uses the camera :) }
look at Drew's juice box face :)
the kids had fun feeding their chips to grateful little animals
and the rest of us soaked in some rays. it was pretty "brisk" but the sun warmed us up.
the classic mary's lake pic. we missed Jon and Melissa and their two cute kids this year....hopefully they will be here next year (? :)

the rest of the day we hung out at the Smith's house. we napped and watched some football, then had a dinner out in the middle of the lawn. it totally reminded me of this picture from one of my favorite books growing up ("oh what a busy day"), all the food and people spread out along a big long table. It was awesome! but of course I didn't take any pictures......baahhh!
last weekend was so fun, but this weekend has been much different; work, editing, photoshoot, preparing a lesson, costco run....definitely not as fun as barbecues and hikes, but it's okay too.

PS!!! Joel had his first observation last week during student teaching and he totally rocked it! I'm so proud :) he is going to be an awesome teacher!
I totally wish I could be in one of his classes and watch him teach, I think it would be fun haha.
PPS bigger pics on our family page! about time!

High school teacher. Who knew?

2010-08-26T13:45:00.000-07:00

Well I have another high school to add to my resume. First I went to Bingham, then I graduated from Riverton, now I am teaching at Alta!

As much as my family doesn't like the idea, I am a Hawk! Actually, not officially because I'm just student teaching, and who knows where I'll be teaching after that, but I do feel a small allegiance to the East side school already. After all, I live in the Alta boundaries, I will be going to the school for the next 4 months (with an Alta parking sticker on my car), I will be teaching over 100 Alta students, getting to know them pretty well I imagine, etc.

So yes, I have started my student teaching. I will be teaching 4 classes until December. Then I graduate!!! (from college not high school). I am really excited to teach and get to know the students in my classes. I haven't done much teaching yet because the teacher I'm working with is starting the classes and teaching the first week or so. But I have been helping out a little here and there. I'm teaching Finance, Entrepreneurship, and 2 Computer Tech classes.

It's awesome to talk to students and help them feel comfortable in class. I love that part of teaching. I want to help students enjoy school and be comfortable there. I'm confident that as I am honest and real with them and as I show that I care about them, they will be able to trust me and allow me to help them. I think it's awesome to think about helping a lot of young people in such a difficult time in life when they have a lot of important decisions.

One student that has been saying 'hi' to me in class and in the halls, came up to me at the end of class today and started asking me questions about a career he has been thinking about going into (He heard me mention that my brother, Jon, works for the government in DC and he had been thinking about doing that). We talked for 5 minutes or so. It made me really excited to be a good influence to students like him!

I'm sure I will have a lot of experiences to share soon. So this is the first post of many about my teaching experience. I hope I don't make our blog too lame by talking about school all the time!

I'll try to use pictures as much as I can. Like these pics that I made Kalli take of me yesterday. I just wanted a good picture that I could use for my profile pictures. I was kind of demanding of Kalli's artistic ability. I wanted a picture that was "cool, artistic, that makes me look mature, professional, and like a teacher." I think that's about what I said. I'm sure Kalli was a little bugged by me continually saying "that's not quite it", but she always does awesome. She's the best, I love you Kalli!!

Here are some good ones:

4th of July

2010-07-31T14:09:00.000-07:00

Kalli has been preparing a new post of the last few weeks, but she is really busy with photography lately, so I don't know if she'll get it posted for a while. So in the mean-time, so we at least get something new up, I'll post a few pictures from the 4th of July weekend. My family did some fun things that weekend, like camp out in tents on my parents lawn, play water games, fireworks, etc.

Kalli took some awesome night shots!

Eric put himself in a ball of fire!

That's a beauty!

Jeni planned some water games for Saturday. This was a fun relay race.

The water hose limbo went from limbo...

To just getting wet...

To jumping over the water. That's when the "big boys" wanted to get involved.

Jeremy put up a good fight jumping off one foot because he got about 12 stitches in his foot a week earlier.

But I think Justin was the winner. He probably could've jumped over that swing set in the background if he wanted to!

Running through the sprinkler provides endless fun!

And of course, the games ended with a water fight. I found myself being ganged-up on. All the little kids against me. I'm pretty sure I won!

Confession

2010-06-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

My family already knows that I like playing basketball on mini hoops and with a mini ball. My parents got a small indoor mini hoop one year for my little brother who was like 7 years old, but I think I played on that hoop in the family room more than anyone. I played on it through my high school years. I could hit any shot in the room :)

Another one of my favorite things, still, is to play on the real basketball hoop at my parents' house, but I like to lower it as far as it goes (7 1/2 ft.) and have a dunk-fest by myself.
When my family got together this Memorial Day, Kalli had her camera and I just happened to have a mini ball available, so we took some action shots.

I know this is lame to post pictures of myself dunking the ball, but I figured I would finally confess my childish hobby/talent.

Kalli knows how to make anything look good and she worked her magic making the hoop actually look pretty high (it's not). However, I have to say, if I was a foot taller, I would be getting paid to do this right now!

The REAL Good Green

2010-06-09T21:56:00.000-07:00

If anyone told me 6 months ago that I'd be mixing up vegetables and fruit in a blender and drinking it (by choice) I would NOT have believed them! Well, now I am, on an almost daily basis (and so is Joel which is pretty remarkable for him too) and I am really liking it!
I heard about the Green Smoothie Girl from my friend Natalie's blog a while back. The first time I saw this lady's site I think I was up till 2am reading her posts on her blog and reading what she had to say on her website. A few weeks later I braved up and made our first green smoothie. We were pretty grossed out after my first attempt, but I'm glad I kept at it. After a few tweaks to her recipe I finally had my own version of a "green smoothie" that I liked and even craved after a while! I made my first one out of a little bit of fruit, water, and about 2 1/2 cups of packed spinach. I wasn't used to the taste or the green color so I had to ease my self into it by adding some healthy orange juice, and a few other naturally sweet things.
I didn't like the green color at first, but now I really like it and actually prefer my smoothies to be green (they turn a nasty brown color if you add blue or black berries)
I have never been one to happily eat veggetables or salads and when I do they usually aren't the dark green kind, so disguising them with fruit is perfect for me! Plus you can pack waaay more greens in than you'd eat in a salad at dinner or lunch, and it's already smooth and smashed up so your digestive system doesn't have to work as hard....it's genius I tell you!
I make a big blenderfull in the mornings now, half for my breakfast and I put the other half in the fridge for Joel's "pre-dinner snack". It's so nice being able to drink something yummy and easy to make and know it's so good for you. We've been trying to implement a few of the green smoothie girl's other suggestions and I've finally been realizing that what I put into my body really affects how I feel (and how I will feel down the road).
I've tried to make a few other different kind of smoothies, but the one that Joel and I like the most right now consists of water, orange juice, spinach, banana, frozen fruit, almonds, and a little raw honey (I'm trying to slowly get rid of the juice). I made one last week that was pretty good, it was made of almond milk, spinach, banana, organic peanut butter, and raw honey. A few weeks ago my friend Kristin and I spent quite a while gathering ingredients for a hot pink smoothie I was so excited to try it out the next morning, but much to my disappointment neither of us could handle the taste. Both of us were gaaging it down. It was vvveeerrrry pretty though, it really was the most beautiful color of pink, the picture doesn't do it justice.

This is what our "every day" smoothie looks like usually (in a frosty mug! haha yum!). Here's to health!

Kind of random, but kind of funny!

2010-06-03T18:16:00.000-07:00

Kalli and I were taking some video for fun on Memorial Day at my parents' house and I was jumping on the tramp. I guess it had been a while since I had landed on my back, because I apparently forgot how. Kalli told me to jump on my back and before thinking about it at all, I went for it and it ended up being a little awkward, as you can see in the video. It's like when a little kid tries it for the first time. We laughed about this for a long time!

Fueling our inner Nerd

2010-05-04T21:02:00.000-07:00

Joel heard about this website (makezine.com) on channel 11 a while back where they teach you how to make all kinds of cool/nerdy stuff. We watched a few of their "how to" videos online and made fun of how weird and nerdy they were, but after a while we were like "wow this is actually pretty sweet" and "haha....yeah, we definitely need to make that".
I think this magazine has officially made it onto my Christmas list. Yep, that's right.
I mean haven't you always wanted to make a TV be gone! or an atlatl? They have some things that are a little more practical like the macro lens on a budget, I could reeeeally use one of those babies.
This one is sweeeeeeet (Cymatics) It totally makes my inner nerd do that snort laugh thing.
So who wants to join our "sciencey/crafty nerd club"? I think we should make This first hehe.

Favorite Sports Memories

2010-04-29T11:20:00.000-07:00

I have been to some pretty awesome sporting events in my life:

BYU football team beat 5th ranked Texas A&M the first game of the year
The NBA Finals, Jazz vs. Bulls game with Nick and his brother Jeremy outside in the parking lot of the Delta Center on a huge TV with thousands of other fans (I think they lost that game - still awesome!)
A professional lacrosse game in the Denver Broncos stadium with Jeremy, Justin, and Breanne.
A few MLB (pro baseball) games including some spring training games in Arizona (my favorite place to be in the spring).

But I think last Friday night topped them all. My Dad called me Friday morning and asked if I wanted to go to the Jazz playoff game against Denver. Of course I said yes since I haven't been to a Jazz game in like 7 years. He said they might be pretty good seats because his boss was offering them to him. He called back and said they were on the 8th row!! And they came with a VIP dinner before the game. I was pretty pumped all day waiting to go. I was just telling Kalli a couple weeks ago how much I would love to see a Jazz game from just a few rows up.
Well, as excited as I was to see the game, it was way more amazing than I had thought!! The whole game I was just taking it all in, hardly believing that I was there with such great seats. It was so fun to just sit there and watch, I wanted the game to last a lot longer (even though I had a headache from all the noise!). We were so close, it was like we were in the game. You don't know how big, fast, and athletic these guys are until you see them up close. It was awesome!

Check out that ticket! Pricey; however, I thought it would be more for those seats.

We had to check out the seats when we first got there. We were pretty excited about them at that point! (we watched Korver hit like 90% of his warm-up shots from all over the court)

We went up to the dinner buffet in a ritzy banquet room on the top floor of the Energy Solutions Arena. It was a pretty small room with an awesome view. There were about 20 other rich suckers eating some of the best food anywhere! (My Dad was pretty excited about the shrimp!) We felt a little awkward and out of place, but happy to be there none-the-less. Needless to say, we felt pretty rich that whole night.

Even watching them warm up was exciting.

Their layup drill was more like a dunk exhibition. I didn't get the best part of it, but for a while they were all just dunking it as hard as they could - Ronnie Price (UVU alum!!) was having his own dunk contest. He was doing some awesome stuff!

The noise was almost unbearable! The crowd was pretty rowdy from the start. My Dad and I were both hoarse by halftime just from trying to talk to each other. My Dad didn't say much the second half because he literally lost his voice.

This kid was hilarious. Every time-out he would get up and dance and try to get the crowd pumped up (not that we needed to be). He looks old, but he must have been in his 20's and a little handicapped (I hope).

The party at the end of the game! I think the only thing that would have made it a better experience is if the Nuggets would've at least put up a fight the last quarter or two.

Just chillin courtside! They let the fans come down on the court after the game. We didn't really want the night to end so we took advantage.

It's going to be hard to top this one. It kind of makes me think it would be worth it to just splurge every once in a while and spend $200 a pop for that experience! (Maybe not on a teacher salary)

How can you not love Disneyland

2010-04-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a few weeks, but I still want to post some pictures of our Disneyland trip with our friends, Kristen and Ian. We had such a fun time at the beach, Disneyland, and California Adventure. We did each in one day, so we weren't there for very long, but it was really fun. The weather couldn't have been better. I think it was about 75 to 80 degrees all three days!

Kalli and I hadn't been there in a long time and didn't remember much, so we were surprised how much we loved it. Everyone was happy, the place was amazingly clean, the rides were fun, and the atmosphere was just really cool! The only thing we could have done without were the parades that jammed up the park every hour. It was kind of funny how we dreaded those. We would see people starting to place blankets on the street..."oh no, here we go again". But it was a perfect trip to get away from school and work for a few days.

The beach was awesome. We didn't spend much time there, but it was so nice to just walk around in the water and take a nap on the warm sand.

We went to Santa Monica beach because we heard it was really nice. In the background of this picture you can see the Santa Monica Pier which I guess is pretty famous. While we were there, someone was shooting a scene for a movie on it, and we were watching a TV show last week and one of the scenes was on the pier. It was pretty cool with a carnival, restaurants, and a few crazy people!

here's a little video we took of all the people running down the pier for the movie they were shooting. There were tons of people!

Joel's never had so much junk in his trunk ;)

Classic
I realized I'm getting older (and wiser) after choosing to wear running shoes instead of "cute" shoes to Disney Land. Function before fashion?

This is one big lego animal!

We ate lunch at the Jazz Kitchen just outside of the park in Downtown Disney. We ate in the courtyard of the restaurant which was so nice. There was hardly anyone there, the weather was perfect, the water fountain and birds gave some nice mood sounds, and the food was delicious! This was one of my favorite parts of the trip, just having a nice, relaxing lunch with Kalli. Ahhh sweet! This was one of my favorite parts too! and their Parmesan fries were waaay good. yum.

Our picture from the buzz light year ride.

Elastagirl, get cha hand off ma man!

I took almost 24,000 steps the day we went to Disney Land! My feet were glad I wore comfy shoes.

There was definitely some "California Screamin" going on! (my favorite ride) lol I love everyone's faces in this

We definitely saw our share of 3D movies. I think this one was the best however. The Bug's Life underground theater was awesome. And the show seemed to be a kid's show, but the effects were crazy! They sprayed us with a mist that engulfed us so fast, I thought I was going to suffocate. They gave us a bee sting where something came out of the bench and poked us (kind of hurt and scared the crud out of everyone!). Then the bugs crawling under our behinds was a little creepy. That was one of the last things we did, but I kind of wanted to do it again!

California Adventure was sweet at night (a lot better than our small camera shows) (I was totally lazy and wouldn't use my big camera. I didn't want to haul it around with me...Joel told me I'd regret it and I totally did)

Well, until next time(you mean next year?;) "happiest place on earth"!!
*kalli's comments in green

CA....we miss you

2010-03-23T23:45:00.000-07:00

We went to California with Kristin and Ian last week....the weather was warm, sunny, and beautiful....ahhhh. Just wanted to post this one pic for now.

Ah Love

2010-02-13T00:03:00.001-08:00

Sometimes we pretend that we have a hot tub in our bathroom and we "just want to put our feet in". This is one of my favorite things to do lately. Our house is freezing!

all you need is a little bit of hot water, a cushy towel to sit on, and your love to chat with. I highly recommend it.

Here's a little music to get you in the mood for a love filled weekend.

Chirstmas 2009

2010-01-18T11:44:00.000-08:00

Christmas is always my favorite time of year. Of course, when I was a kid I just wanted presents, but as I grew up I started to love the feeling of the season, giving gifts, being with family, and of course the snow!

This year was a perfect combination of all the good. It was fun going to the "old-fashion" tree lot to pick out a tree, just me and Kalli. And bringing it home and decorating it with all our hand-me-down ornaments and decorations. We decided we're going to have to take turns each year choosing a tree because Kalli loves the small, scraggly trees (this year), and I like the big, bushy ones. Maybe we can get both if we get a house soon!

We had great company again this year. All of Kalli's family lives in the area and my sister, Julie, came from Arizona with her family for a couple weeks. The only ones missing were Jon and Melissa from Washington, DC. While we always miss them, we enjoyed spending time with everyone else watching movies, playing games, eating good food, and just hanging out, having a good time!

And I can't forget to mention the snow!! We were blessed with some wonderful white stuff this Christmas break. We always have tons of fun at the Smith's house playing in the backyard, sledding, skiing, snowboarding, and riding around on and behind the four-wheeler. It wouldn't be a Smith get-together if we didn't play in the snow and build jumps and box-hits (a plastic box to ski and snowboard on).

We planned on having fun at the Heaps cabin for New Year's Eve, but the first night we were there (New Year's Eve) I got the stomach flu which definitely ruined me and Kalli's weekend (and probably everyone else's). We ended up going home the next day when I finally felt good enough to make the trip down the canyon.

So besides that little incident we had a great Christmas!! We hope you all had fun too. Here are a bunch of random pictures from the couple weeks' festivities.

We started off the season making a Christmas card. We had fun taking pictures for it!

Not the biggest tree in the world!

Kalli's "cute little tree"

Don't judge me. She wanted that pot.

The monstrous Heaps' tree is always a sight to see on Christmas morning!

His fuzzy pj's were the best!

Madi, the cup-cake queen.

Yeah, we finally have night-stands so I don't have to use the non-level kitchen chair anymore.

The 65-inch live fireplace was a nice touch to set the mood.

So much fun!!

Extreme Eric wanted me to build a jump for the disk sled. He and Cole were lovin' it!

Jensen and Drew got in on the jumping action too.

Still jumping at dusk.

We're serious about this stuff - Julie and Ella are all business :)

I love the snow everywhere. Couldn't be more pretty!!

Love this picture. (sweet 80's get-ups girls)

I had to include the chopper. We had about 4 of these flying around on Christmas at the Smith's.

The kiddies love the train.

2009....good riddance, I mean I hope I never see you again...oh yeah I won't, in that case...good riddance

2010-01-06T22:03:00.000-08:00

2009 was crazy!!!! I know everyone says this, but where did the time go?
..........I was about to give a little recap of our year, but I am having a hard time remembering very many noteworthy things....2009 was full of some ups... some downs... and a whole lot of busy.
School, homework, work, and photography...these are the things that we have been most busy with. Joel is about to start his LAST semester of school...as you can imagine we are both very very excited. He worked so hard last semester and it paid off with straight A's.
When I wasn't working at my day job I was busy with photography. This year has been an interesting one trying to figure out the workings of a small(tiny) business. Making mistakes, trying to define my "style", and figuring out what direction to take things.
One thing I'll always remember about 2009 is that this is the year I realized I am getting old. Among other things, this was brought on by LOTS of grey hairs, combating my Thyroiditis, and realizing that exercise really is a necessity if I want to be healthy (umm why didn't yall clue me in on this??? ;) ). I miss my younger, problem free body, but am coming to terms with me "now".
To be honest I haven't missed 2009, 2010 is looking much better already. Bring it on.

This year I plan on...
taking better care of my body
not letting my thyroiditis get the better of me
flossing every day...(am I the only one that hasn't already made this a strict daily habit?)
strengthening my testimony
being more grateful
trying to refrain from anger...this is an amazing talk
exercise more (I know I know...everyone says this but I'm really going to do it!)
being more open and honest, less afraid of people, and more comfortable in my own skin

We did have lots of fun in there somewhere between the busyness..... These are a few of our adventures that we didn't blog about.

We went on a fun hike with the smith family

went wakeboarding with bryan, lindsay, and brayden

actually joel wakeboarded and I enjoyed looking at the cold water from the boat

went to a demolition derby with kristin and ian

went to the manti pagent with abby and steven

saw a baseball game and listened to some hillarious hecklers

went to lagoon with abby and steven

took our huge kite our for a spin(fly?)

Joel taught me how to hit a golf ball

we played at the park one sunny morning

and I'll end with this one because I just think it's funny. us at the fair. we went with Katie and Eric and had a splendid time

"I Have Eatan"

2010-01-05T17:35:00.000-08:00

"I Have Eatan" a poem by Joel Smith, age 7

Ok...Isn't this the cutest thing you've ever read? I think we laughed for half an hour after finding this. I love it.

Backyard Skiing!!

2009-12-13T17:01:00.000-08:00

A Smith family tradition every time it snows more than a couple inches is to fire up the four-wheeler and snowboard/ski behind it in our parents' backyard. There's a new member of the club this year. Jensen strapped in and took some laps. He didn't act too excited, but he took lap after lap with no complaints when he would fall. Justin just kept picking him up and he would keep going. He really enjoyed it, but I guess he just took it seriously.

I wanted some good pictures this time so I borrowed Kalli's camera and we got some pretty awesome pictures. Gotta love the SLR! I love how you can see the snowflakes.

We had an awesome time, as usual. We must have been out there for about 5 hours! And sadly, my body is feeling it today. My upper body is incredibly sore! But can't wait for the next time.

Softball

2009-11-25T13:35:00.000-08:00

Since Kalli is slacking in her blogging duties, I thought I would post another random one. (just kidding - Kalli is really busy with picture taking, and she was sick all weekend, and it's not really her duty to post blogs :)

I look forward to playing softball every fall with my brother, Justin, and some other friends. We play in a Lehi league. Our last game, Kalli had her camera and offered to take a few pictures. I'm impressed that she was able to take any since it was like 30 degrees that night. Here are some of the best ones. Thanks Kalli, you're the best!

Justin's power swing. Everyone is always amazed how far he hits the ball for a little guy! (not little to me)

My power swing! It does look like I'm blasting the ball out of the park, but I have to admit I photo-shopped this one. It was actually a pop up - I moved the ball.

Cutest fan award. My nephew, Van visiting from Washington DC.

An all-Smith outfield. We were able to sneak my brother, Jon (Van's dad) onto the team for one night (he and his wife, Melissa were visiting for the week).

5k - what was I thinking

2009-11-13T11:00:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday night, my brother-in-law, Brian, asked me if I wanted to run a 5k on Saturday. I said "sure" and so we did. It was at Wheeler Farm in Murray. It was pretty cool to do it just for the accomplishment. I don't really like running, but like my Uncle Gery told me recently, when you get old and can't play sports anymore you have to do something to keep in shape. I think I am starting to fall into that category in my 28th year!

We ran at a pretty mild pace and finished in 26 minutes. It was much easier than when I ran it a few years ago with my little brother, Jeremy, in Bluffdale when we practically sprinted the whole thing (it seemed like it anyway). We didn't train for that one either. From what I remember, our time was around 22 minutes. That was torture!

You might notice dogs in every picture. We were wondering why there were hundreds of dogs. Then we realized the run was for some animal charity. We were dodging dogs on leashes the whole run. Kind of weird!

Looking pretty confident before the race

A sweet shot of the gun smoke. Good one Kalli!

We're in there somewhere

Left: a final sprint to the finish - I had to beat that old man! Right: happy to be done.

Not even phased by the whopping 3 miles!

Halloween

2009-11-02T23:14:00.000-08:00

We did some fun Halloween things this year. We went to my work's trunk or treat on thursday with Lindsay, Brian, and Brayden, and then to our friend's Halloween party on Saturday night. After some convincing the week before I talked Joel into growing out his beard so we could be the "fun size" Wolverine and Rogue from X-Men. Much to our delight everyone thought Joel was a very convincing wolverine. And what holiday is complete in the J.K. Smith household without a little photo shoot?

(we need to come up with some new poses)

Yeah thats my husband, he's hot.

2009-10-31T10:57:00.000-07:00

I couldn't take it anymore. I had to see the snow, so after class on Friday I took a little mountain excursion with Kalli's camera to take some pictures. I thought I would have to go about half way up the canyon to get to the snowy trees. I found out I would have to go a bit higher to find the good stuff. I got to Brighton Ski Resort and there was only a couple inches so I started hiking. I got about 3/4 the way up the mountain when I found 8 inches of snow and snowy trees. It was fun though; I might make it an early season tradition.

Date Night

2009-10-16T22:57:00.000-07:00

We had a little long boarding date at the church parking lot tonight. It's been collecting dust in my trunk for over a year, yikes! We were a bit rusty (ok we've never really had skills in the first place) but it was fun!

Music Break!!

2009-10-15T00:52:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to share a few tunes that have been keeping me pumped editing tonight. I love this girls voice!!!

No apologies on this one. I LOVE every bit of it! Tried to post the actual music video from Youtube, but embed was 'disabled'?.....LAME!
What do you guys think???

Here's a little peek at the Heaps family photo shoot last week.

Blogger sucked the color out of these pics, they don't really look like this

Need a Christmas Card photo?

2009-10-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

Head on over to my photography blog . I'm trying something new this year, Holiday mini sessions. Just the right amount of time at just the right price to get a few pics of your family and a few pics of your little ones.

School House Rock!

2009-10-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about This all day.....I'm kind of dying to see it.....

Fun Day

2009-09-19T00:20:00.000-07:00

We hung out with Madi and her boyfriend Scott today at his cabin. It was lots of fun! We shot guns, took pics up the canyon, ate treats, and took some more pics.

These were some of my favs so far.

Hey Gals and Pals

2009-09-14T00:11:00.000-07:00

If you can spare a sec could you swing on over to my photog blog and fill out the survey I just posted about? I'd really appreciate it... and I'll give you a high five the next time I see you? ....and maybe a dime?(tempting right?)...........Are you heading over yet?....
*This is so great! Thanks so much to everyone who's responded so far! I'm getting some really good insights! Keep them coming!*

Hungry!!!!!

2009-09-02T15:40:00.000-07:00

Isn't this the cutest thing!!! haaaaaa!!!! I love it! I'm not sure making "Hungry" look adorable is the best marketing scheme, but I sure love this commercial! And now I think I'm hungry.

Good Things

2009-09-01T15:08:00.000-07:00

I have a loonnnng list of things I should be doing right now, but I need a blog break.
Growing up my family used to say "good things" at the dinner table. We had to say something good that happened to us or something we were thankful for. It was a good way to keep us positive and remember that even through out the worst days there's always something positive that happened. I felt like I needed a little reminder today about the positives, so here are my "Good Things" for today.
*Chocolate coco puff ceareal with marshmallows and chocolate milk for breakfast. Yum! (I ususally have oatmeal or cream of wheat at work so this was a nice change)
*Getting kisses from my honey before he leaves for school.
*I got to drive to work in my car with freshly changed oil. Thanks Joel!
*I got a second part time job! Extra money is always nice.
*......hmmmm...yep thats all I got for now.

Heaps Cabin

2009-08-22T21:38:00.000-07:00

Ahhh what a wonderful weekend. We were both in need of a little R&R last week so we went up to the Heaps Cabin to relax and enjoy some fresh air.

While we were there we:

Made smores

Took some nice naps

Read up on our National Geographic.

Took some pics

Rock climbed
And took a nice drive up the mountain.

This was the only bad part about the trip......we saw snow....I was not very happy about that... Joel was thrilled.

Joel, thanks for a fun weekend and for loving me even when
I'm stressed and cranky. Love you! xo

Coin Laundry

2009-08-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

I love love love this song and the video. If you can, listen to it through some headphones, it will sound even better.
Oh and Itunes? Could you please get on the ball and add this song so I can buy it? I need it a-sap!

Taylor, AZ

2009-07-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

Guess what we did this weekend?

4th of July!

2009-07-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

We had lots of fun things to keep us busy this 4th of July. We started out our day bright and early by heading down to Provo to see the hot air balloons. They were amazing!
We got there too late last year, so it was fun to be able to see them all getting blown up and stuff. They are huge!
We went to the Provo parade after and had a great time hanging out with Joel's extended family.
Here are a few highlights of what we saw....
Trick horse riders!!! I don't think I really get the point of this now, but when I was little I sure wanted to be one of them! My sister Lindsay would teach me tricks on my little plastic bouncy horse Lol!
.....I can just imagine a conversation this young man might have had with his friends.....
Friend: "So what are you doing in the Parade again?"
Young Man: "ummmm.....I'm wearing a big blood drop suit...."
Sick!!!! He must have been bribed.
Isn't this car sweet!? I've never seen a snazzy copper penny paint job like that!
This guy was a very convincing Cpt. Jack Sparrow. The photo doesn't do him justice.
We also saw my good friend Abe :).
I had a very vivid dream once where I actually got to meet Abe Lincoln and shake his hand. Ever since then I've kinda felt like he's my buddy :).
In my dream, he was in a coffin wearing his famous black suit (only it was crocheted....haha). I shook his hand and I asked him "How come you were so cool when you were alive?!" He very seriously responded "Because I was part of the bow wow gang". And then the song "bow wow wow yippy yo yippy yea" started playing like back ground music.....
Ummm why does this High School band kid have a sword?

After a delicious dinner at the Smith's house we saw some fire works in Riverton. It was a great day!

It's Official!

2009-07-03T10:28:00.000-07:00

We have the Internet!!!! ahhhhh I can pay bills in my PJs, look up recipes for dinner, and blog at 3am if I want....freedom, I love it. Speaking of that, happy Independence day tomorrow! I hope you get to see some of these.

We've been keeping busy with work and trying not to get sick. For some reason we've been getting sick pretty much once a month since we've moved.....I would like to know why, it's driving us both crazy. We bought a new lens a while back and it's been a dream to use, totally love it. We had to go down town to the FedEx place to pick it and just couldn't wait to use it. Here are a few we took.

salt flats

2009-06-05T18:36:00.001-07:00

Yep thats thats right, a new post... finally. Well I will finish this as long as I don't go crazy first...am I the only one that can't seem to type on lap top keyboards?
We went out to the salt flats last weekend for a family shoot and decided to stay after we finished to experiment with my new lens! It's like a whole new world shooting with a wide lens... and I am loving it! It makes me want to sing the hallelujah chorus.
These were a few of my favs. Be sure to click on them for a larger view because they look saaa weet!

Yeah we like to think we're pretty tough

These are a few pics we took on.. Easter....umm better late than never?

Yay! the end of the post and no craziness, how about a poloroid to celebrate? This picture makes me happy.

WOW

2009-05-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

Ok I know this is another unsubstantial post but I had to share this! It gives me chills!
It took a little while for all the parts to load, but it's worth it.
copy and paste this link http://www.inbflat.net/

Ha! I like this

2009-05-14T15:01:00.000-07:00

Listen and it will brighten your day. The kazoo part is my fav :)

The good CAPIN sent me a gift

2009-05-07T13:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was not a good day… nothing tremendously horrible happened, it was just one of those days, plus I found out Joel caught my cold even after we had been trying so hard to prevent it. I also went to buy a swimming suit I had been wanting, tried it on, quickly took it off and left without it…. Swim suit trying on should not be allowed without good lighting and those mirrors that make you look tall and skinny.
I knew today would be better though… with a cinnamon roll, yogurt and string cheese for breakfast I couldn’t go wrong. My assumption was confirmed when I poured myself some crunch berry cereal for a snack and out came only blue and green crunch berries! Only my favorite colors??? Plus I’m getting together with my friend Kristin today to make some fun things. Yep…today will be much better.

*after thought….ok I’m reading this post from yesterday and yes I realize it’s rather dorky, but I am a dork sometimes and I’m ok with that :).

Brown Sugar Cookies

2009-04-23T14:34:00.000-07:00

If you know me you know that I love love love sugar in most forms. These delicious cookies are no exception. I made them over the weekend and they turned out great! I got it from america's test kitchen. I love this show and their recipes because these cooks are picky and work out all the kinks in recipes so you don’t have to. Their recipes are usually a little more complicated, but they get things juuuust right. (Sorry, I can’t give you a cool little link to get to the website, I’m posting on a break at work and the computers here just won’t allow it)
http://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipe.asp?recipeids=4054&iSeason=8

beautiful

2009-04-06T15:33:00.001-07:00

Wow these girls have the most beautiful voices. Had to share this. These sisters call themselves "first aid kit".

I found this clip on this awesome website http://www.somethingshidinginhere.typepad.com/

"The longest day (in our case weekend) ever"

2009-04-06T14:41:00.000-07:00

I found this clip today of sweet little Randy Taylor and had to post it. This is exactly like what happened to us a few weeks ago…..minus the assumption of death….minus running away….plus a loving husband to comfort me and give me blessings….plus having to wait about 4 days for my CT scan results (booooo!)….ok so this wasn’t exactly like what happened, but we did find out that I have hypothyroidism. After several more tests we also found out that I don’t have a goiter or any kind of mass growing in my thyroid! Sweet!
So yes, this did mean I would have to take a small dose of thyroid replacement hormone every day, but I can totally live with that! Much better than surgery.
I think this was really a blessing in disguise. I had had some odd symptoms for a while and was starting to think I was a little paranoid. Well it turned out there really was something wrong and the medication has actually helped all of my symptoms a lot! Moral of the story? Trust your instincts.

Today I am thankful for:
Good health
A loving husband
Priesthood blessings
Prayers of family and friends
Answers to prayers
A loving Father in Heaven

Spring Break

2009-03-24T13:57:00.000-07:00

Well it wasn't a relaxing week in Arizona sitting by the pool, but it was a fun spring break none the less. My little sister, Jeni, wanted to go on a road trip and go visit a few national parks, so we did last weekend (with her husband, Chad, and Kalli and me). Even though Kalli was disappointed with the pictures (she forgot her wide angle lens), we still got a few sweet ones (I thought).

We went to Zion National Park first and camped there for 2 nights.

This one shows some crazy rock climbers. The next one is closer up on them.

Ahh, that's cute. What are you still on the honey moon?

There were some serious switchbacks on this trail. We hiked up to Angel's Landing on Friday. It was a pretty serious hike, but the weather was awesome. It was in the lower 80's at the bottom, but in the shade near the top, it was a perfect temperature. Most of these pictures are from that hike, since that's mostly all we did. We were hiking for 4 or 5 hours on this one.

This is how close we were to the thousand foot cliff. I don't know what we were thinking!

Even the lizards were out in full force. This one is feeling crazy out on the edge of the cliff.

There wasn't much water this time of year, but these little falls gave us a nice mist.

Here's the photographer. I had to give here a little recognition. Aren't the bandana and big white glasses cute! (Even after 3 days in the wilderness)

We ended the trip by stopping at Bryce Canyon just to see it. It was a bit colder there (as you can see by the sweatshirts and snow).

Thanks Jeni and Chad. We had tons of fun (minus the high winds and freezing temps both nights, and the rock hard sleeping conditions). I think we owe our lives to Jeni for preparing the food. We would've starved for sure without her preparation.

some very fun things!!!!!

2009-02-05T18:00:00.000-08:00

I wanted to let everyone know that we have found a place to live! So those of you that were worried about us trying to bum a room for a few months can rest at ease :).
We are sooo excited about it. This new place has surpassed our wildest dreams! Ok, we're paying rent now so we're back to real life, but it really is great and our land lord seems like such a nice lady. We'll be living exactly 4 houses away from our current residence, this place was right under our noses and we didn't even know it. Anyway I could go on and on, but I won't because I want to share the other things that are making my me happy right now.
*First of all, poloroids....free ones.....that you can make out of digital pictures. sweet!
Here's the website http://poladroid.net/download.html and here are a few examples.....

Yay! Happy New Years!

This was a photo from Joel's b-day that I failed to blog about. I really like this photo of him. And this is just a photo of us in love *photo by Jon

*My next item of business is just for the girls........ it's something you can use all those plastic grocery bags for. click here and scroll down a little to watch the demo video.
I think I'm having a craft day. Anyone want to join me?

Smith Cabin Trip

2009-01-25T23:53:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the Heaps Family, the Smith family had an awesome winter vacation up to the Heaps cabin. As you can see from the first picture, all of my brothers and sisters are very excited to be there. The little kids went sledding while the dudes went skiing at The Canyons. We all had a great time together. These are just a few random pictures from the trip.

Here's my little bro Jeremy hoping to be in High School Musical 4

Justin (watermelon candy)

Joel (green goblin)

Jeremy (cool blue)

Jon (Mr. smooth)

Just a little photoshop action

Happy Birthday Joel! XXOOxoo

2009-01-05T16:28:00.000-08:00

In honor of the birthday boy... :)

Just a few things

2008-12-16T21:01:00.000-08:00

I was going through some of our pictures and found some stuff I wanted to blog about but never did.
**********************************************************************************
We had an awesome night in the Smith's backyard this past summer. Marshmallows, family, and experimenting with my camera....it doesn't get any better than that!
*********************************************************************************
I love the State Fair, and once just wasn't enough this year. We had to go twice. We had funnel cakes, deep fried PB&J, and kettle corn, YUM! We saw a sweet hypnotist show the first night and went back the next night to see it again.

hahaha
Giant Peaches!!!
Smoking-clogging-grannies

Fluffy, fuzzy, cute, bunnies........I was in Heaven!

**********************************************************************************
We went up to the hang gliding park for a date night this fall. They had this wooden pic-nic table at the far end of their "launch pad", so we brought our cafe rio and got to watch all the hang gliders land right in front of us. It was so fun to watch and the best part was, It Was Free!

What a BABE!

Same place different time. Joel is way good at handstands!
********************************************************************************
And last but not least, Halloween. I just wanted to add this pic cause I get a kick out of it every time I look at it. Joel and I have always looked "youthful" but in this pic I think we both look like 12 yr olds haha

Lights at Temple Square

2008-12-01T20:48:00.000-08:00

We decided to go down to Temple Square on Saturday night to work on taking night shots. It was way crowded, but it was fun to see all the lights and the beautiful S.L. Temple.
Another beautiful thing about the temple is the sealing ordinance that is performed inside. When I see the temple it reminds me that I have a loving Heavenly Father that wants us to be happy and has given us the blessing of being sealed to our family forever. I know that the temple is the house of the Lord and families can be together forever because of the ordinances done here.

First Snow Storm!!

2008-11-05T20:32:00.000-08:00

I just can't pass up the opportunity to blog about snow! When I left for school this morning it was a blizzard at the point of the mountain (school is in Orem), but then Orem had barely any snow. By the time I left school, the snow was melted. But when I came home around 2:00 I was pleasantly surprised that it was snowing here at home and had been most of the day apparently because we had about 7 inches of freshy! I get a little too happy when it's snowing and have to go play in it. Kalli gets the biggest kick out of me when I'm "giddy" because of the snow. So here's the first "snow" post of many, I'm sure.

We still have roses, but not for long

The skis are ready to come out of hibernation!

This is on the back deck. My hand is at least 6 inches tall.

Our First Anniversary!

2008-10-30T20:35:00.000-07:00

This post is way late, but our anniversary totally needed to be blogged about.
I can't believe it's been a year! I think we have definitely proven that the first year is not something to be feared! The transition from being best friends to married best friends couldn't have been smoother. We are still madly in love and happier than ever :).
What an awesome day! We slept in and made crepes for breakfast, and then went to the temple to do sealings. We decided to go all out for the big day and went to dinner at the Roof Restaurant in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. The best part was definitely dessert! They had the most amazing dessert buffet I have ever seen. It was seriously a thing of beauty. Joel was smart and ate mostly dinner food, as for me? ......White chocolate cheesecake with fresh berries...lemon tarts....creme brule...carrot cake.....ohhh baby!!!!
Being with my honey, eating dessert and gazing at the temple....sigh...I was in heaven!!! It was so much fun hanging out together and reminiscing about our wedding day. This has been the best year of my life and I'm so excited for countless more to come. I love you Joel!

The view from our table

Happy Halloween!!

2008-10-29T19:38:00.001-07:00

Well Halloween has come upon us once again and once again I have unsuccessfully come up with a creative costume to wear, and have made no plans for this holiday. Well as long as we have pumpkins to display on our porch. We had our friends, Katie and Eric come over and carve pumpkins with us Tuesday night. We didn't get many pictures, but we did make some pretty sweet jack-o-lanterns. Mmm...SkullCandy

Kalli went with a little happier display

family photos

2008-10-15T18:07:00.001-07:00

We went up little cottonwood canyon Friday to check out the fall leaves and take a few pics. We had to hike down some rocky terrain to get to these sweet spots, but it was worth it!
We had to use the timer on my camera which turned out to be quite a challenge with all the boulders in between us and the camera(for me at least!). Because of this, we discovered Joel's mountain-goat-like capabilities which I am very greatful for.

What can we say? The beauty of nature makes us jump for joy :)

Boys Fishing Trip

2008-09-30T22:13:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I got up at 4:30 am, rode for two hours in a truck pulling a boat up a canyon, arrived at Strawberry Reservoir while it was still dark and about 35 degrees outside. We loaded up the fishing boat and put it in the water. What was I thinking? I guess that's how a day with "the guys" starts out. Something I've been missing out on my whole life, until now. But the pictures tell the real story. It was a whole new experience for me and a whole lot of fun at the same time.

Brian and Kendall loading up "bananas and creme" (the boat)

Wee hours of the morning on the reservoir. Yes, that's real steam on the water! The guys weren't too happy with me for taking so many pictures while we were supposed to be getting the fishing poles ready before the sun came up, but I had to, it was too picture perfect.

Here's the master-mind of the whole operation, man-ing the motor and picking out just the right set-up out of the tackle box of wonders. You look a little tired Kendall!

The first catch of the day belonged to Brian (as well as every other catch of the day!) Somebody had the right stuff on the hook.

I have to admit, I was pretty surprised at the size of the fish. I think altogether we caught 16 fish and they were all between 16 and 20 inches. These are just a few beauties.

The one exception, however. I think Kendall was today's winner landing this bad boy near the end of the day after the clouds rolled in! Ok, I lied, he got this one in Alaska a month ago. I think we ate him a couple weeks ago.

The colors all around the reservoir were pretty amazing also. Thanks for my first real fishing trip guys, I really did enjoy it, even though I got a little frustrated near the end for not catching anything. I ended up getting a few.

Pictures from Elder Smith

2008-09-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know, my little brother, Jeremy, is in Hawaii on a mission. He is coming home in about a month and a half. So in lieu of him coming home, I thought I would post a few of his pictures that he has sent home that I doctored up a little in Photoshop. I have a Photoshop class this semester and have learned a few things. I decided to put my newly found skills to use on some sweet pics from Hawaii and they turned out even sweeter. So for those of you who are awaiting Elder Smith's arrival in November, let these pictures motivate you to round up some monies so we can get there someday!! (Note from Kalli: Joel's actually the one that worked on these pics. He's amazing! I'm glad he's taking this photoshop class cause he's teaching me a lot! :)

See ya in a few Jeremy

Music break

2008-09-08T11:13:00.000-07:00

I love this song, it makes me cry. Have a listen!

This music video is a little odd, but I really like the song.

Larson Cabin

2008-08-25T20:56:00.000-07:00

We went up to the Larson Cabin for 3 days last week for a much needed vacation. Ohhh what a fun place. More info to come.

Thanks so much for all the nice comments everyone! To answer your question Melissa about the night photo: If you have a manual setting on your camera, you set the shutter to stay open for a long time like 15-20 seconds and set the ISO pretty high, like 800 or above. I'm not sure how to do it on other cameras, actually...I don't really know how to do it very well on mine, we were just kind of messing around. sorry, thats not too helpful. (Oh but it's really important to have a tripod and to use the timer. If you don't, even the tiniest movement from your hands can make it blurry. Thanks to Uncle Von for letting us use his tripod :)
Here's a little more info about the trip.

The humming birds looooved the feeder grandpa put up. We saw a total of 6 fighting for it at one time! Those things are ruthless!

What a cute little boy!!! We rode up with Lindsay and Bryan and got to sit with Brayden on the way up and back. He didnt cry once the whole way up, which is amazing because it's a 4 hr drive and a big part of it is washboard dirt roads!
Oh my handsom husband, I love him.
The boys had fun shooting their b.b. guns.
I got to push Hannah on the swing for a little bit. She is so cute! Oh and we also had fun reading her Barbie coloring book.
We couldn't believe how many wild flowers there were all over the place. It was amazing.

Joel after our ride back from duck fork reservoir. Haha, his hair was awesome thanks to a little wind.

hahaha loved this one.
This was a fish my dad caught. I thought it was actually really pretty!
Look at that innocent face...Joel were you fishing without a license??? tsk tsk haha ;)
Check out the monster my dad caught!

The stars were AMAZING!!!! We loved looking at them.

Josh and his b.b. gun. He is pretty hard core.
All the girls. We were pretty outnumbered this year.

Tribute part 1

2008-08-07T20:33:00.000-07:00

I love my husband Joel. He is such an amazing and wonderful person for so many reasons. One of the things I've been very greatful for these last couple months is his courage when facing horrible, disgusting, creapy crawly creatures (spiders). Anyone who knows me pretty well knows that I HATE spiders and am completely terrified of them. Well since we've lived in this basement I think I've seen more of them in the past 6 months than I have in the past 10 years, which hasn't been very easy for me (or Joel) to deal with. He has had to put up with me screaming for him to come to my rescue countless times. I've even woken him up with my screams when there was a spider that was crawling on me in the middle of the night (I think that was pretty traumatizing for both of us). After being around them for so long I'm finally able to kill them as long as they're not really really big, and as long as they're not fast (I only kill them when Joel's not home). Killing them for me requires lot's of hair spray (to slow them down), shoes on my feet (in case it runs towards me so I can step on it), and a hard pair of flat bottomed shoes in my hands (so they don't have any treds to hide in). Well it still amazes me that he will kill even the biggest spider with nothing more than a kleenex, shoe, or even his bare hands. Ohhhh I am so thankful that he will do that for me. If I see a spider I know I can count on him to kill it quickly (and not chase me around the house with it.......Dad!). I love it! He is truly my knight in shining armor.

Summer "Staycation"

2008-07-25T21:01:00.000-07:00

Well, as much as I love seeing a Wisk Detergent bottle on the screen every time I go to our blog, I think it's time for an update. And I need to hone in on my blogging skills too. I've never posted anything on the blog without Kalli's supervision, so I guess I will give it a shot and Kalli can edit my choice of words and phrases later. Recently we went on a summer "staycation" as many of you know and heard all about. We took a couple of days off work and traveled around the scenic Salt Lake area to see if we could have fun without selling the farm (is that a real phrase?). We took pictures of all the stuff we did, so here they are with a little commentary so each of you can come along on our adventure!!

On thursday night we went to Lagoon. What a happy couple. (Kalli's trying to not think about the Rocket here)

Our first ride was the sky ride. That's how you know we're getting old! Actually, I just remembered we rode the scrambler first. I love that ride! Good, we're not that old yet, I guess.

The dreaded Rocket! Kalli is so scared of this thing, it's almost comical for me. I just can't believe that it can be that scary. But she's always willing to do it with me and that's how I know she loves me. I like the re-entry so that's what we did. Kalli let out the loudest, most terrifying scream when we dropped. That was the highlight of my night! I didn't know she had the pipes.

We ended the night with the Title Wave (love it!) and the Swings. This is Kalli in front of me on the swings. I held the camera up and tried to steady it and that quick I was starting to get sick so I snapped a quick pic and hurried and looked up while breathing deeply in and out (I'm getting pretty good at that now). I think the picture turned out pretty sweet though.

On Friday morning we took a visit to the zoo. We stayed there for a quite a few hours. I didn't think I would be that interested, but it was actually really cool. We first saw the monkeys. I think this was one of my favorite things at the zoo. These pictures are the spider monkeys. They were climbing all over and swinging and using their tail to swing themselves around. We stayed there and watched them forever. I just kept thinking, "these thinks look just like humans!".

Here I am giving the polar bear some skin. You might think this would be dangerous, but he's actually a pretty nice guy! (after this I said "give me a platform...let's rock, let's rock today)

You gotta love the rhinos.

I kept waiting for one of these to say, "Alex, I'm thinking of a song..."(Madagascar)

I will admit, this thing is just so cute! I guess it was a red panda. I just thought it was a cartoon fox.

This thing was awesome. I didn't know they had a cheetah at the zoo! While we were watching it laying down in the shade, it suddenly got up and was staring something down. Maybe he saw a gazelle in the next cage over. I wanted to see it run 70mph, but it probably wasn't possible in his 100 ft. cage.

We saw this cute little Asian girl and had to get a picture.

We are getting better at taking pictures of ourselves. This one has a sloth in the background!

Kalli loved the butterflies. They had at least 100 different ones on this board and I think Kalli took a picture of each one individually:)

That's classic!!

After the zoo we went to the Lion House Pantry in the bottom floor of the Lion House in downtown Salt Lake City. We bought a "salt lake connect pass" online that gave us free admission to all these places (minus lagoon) so that's why we went to them all. Our pass included free lunch at this place. It was some delicious eatin'.

Next stop, Clark Planetarium. I don't know why the only two pictures we got at this place were with ginormous glasses, but I like them. The first ones were in the toy shop area. All I can say is "Hot!". The next ones were 3D glasses for the Imax movie. They're pretty stylin also.

We bought some sweet toys at the planetarium and had to rush to the nearest park and try out our airplane. Kalli put it together in the car because it was getting dark. You pull it back by the elastic and let 'er rip. It flew a couple hundred feet. Before dark we had that thing in pieces. Mission accomplished!

flight demo

Saturday morning we high-tailed it out of the 90 degree valley and headed up to Snowbird for cool morning/afternoon of fresh air. We had a free tram ride or chairlift up to the top of the mountain and took the chairlift where we got this picture of the tram next to us. After getting off the lift at the bottom, we rode down the alpine slides which was pretty fun. I just don't know if it was worth the hour wait in line (we got fried!).

It was pretty weird walking onto the lift and being without skis or snow gear. The weirdest part was coming down the lift. It felt like we were a mile up in the air.

We found some snow in July! I'm just crouching down to touch it, nothing else.

Ok, I lied. I just couldn't resist! Nice shot Kalli.

At the top of the lift, we went through the tunnel to get to the other side of the mountain. It was pretty sweet! It must have been like 40 degrees in there; totally weird. This was a pretty wide spot that we found. I remember going through in winter on skis, they had a little snack shop in that little hole.

Here we are at the other end. It looks like it's still under construction, but they just had the conveyor belt marked off with cones.

I just like this one because I look hard core!

Well that was our summer trip. We were actually going to go to Thanksgiving point to see the dinosaur museum and walk around the gardens, but after doing all this stuff and walking around for three days, we were just like "how about we just watch a movie instead". You gotta have some lazy time on vacation too!

Love+Hate

2008-05-30T13:46:00.000-07:00

Dear Wisk,

I have loved you for 6 long months now, I've used you to clean my laundry over and over again. I absolutely love your fresh sent and the way you make my clothes wonderfully clean. I have even proven my dillegence to you by turning down other detergent brands when you were not available, and yet you continue to mock me with your flimsy lids and seemingly magnetic powers that drive you to the ground. I don't consider my self to be a very clumsy person. I don't ususally trip when walking, and I dont drop important things, but you seem to wish to prove me otherwise. Twice now, I have purchased a brand new bottle of you and each time I do somehow I drop you, spilling your wonderfully scented contents all over whatever is underneath leaving a very slimy blue mess for me to clean up, and your now completely useless bottle...so, my beloved wisk, this is why I love and hate you. It has come to this...if this happens again I will be forced to terminate our relationship and start buying another brand.

-Kalli

Guess What?

2008-05-28T00:50:00.000-07:00

I started up a photography blog! I'll be posting some client shoots, family stuff, my wedding portfolio etc...my portfolio isn't organized, but it will do for now. I'll be using this until my sweetie can make me a website :o)
check it out! it's www.kallinasmithphotography.blogspot.com

coveted skills

2008-05-26T21:54:00.000-07:00

wow this kid is amazing! this clip is long but welllll worth it.

Help! I've been Tagged!

2008-05-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

A-ATTACHED OR SINGLE? Attached!
B-BEST FRIEND? Joel
C-CAKE OR PIE? mmm I'm craving a rainbow chip cake with rainbow chip frosting.....
D-DAY OF CHOICE? Saturday and Sunday
E-ESSENTIAL ITEMS? food and sleep, Joel.
F-FAVORITE COLOR? depends on the day. Today it's dark pink cause thats what color my nails are.
G-GUMMY BEARS OR WORMS? definitely worms
H-HOMETOWN? Draper
I-INDULGENCE? Hagendaaz ice cream......oooohhhh boy 23 g of fat per 1/2 cup....just like I like it!!
J-JANUARY OR JULY? July
K-KIDS? Not yet, but hopefully some day.
L-LIFE ISN'T COMPLETE WITHOUT....Joel, our family members, and the gospel.
M-MARRIAGE DATE? October 11th 2007
N-NUMBER OF SIBLINGS? 3 sisters, 7 bro in laws, 4 sister in laws.
O-ORANGES OR APPLES? mmmm I love a good fugi apple
P-PHOBIAS OR FEARS? spiders, earthquakes, being in a natural disaster and being away from Joel or away from home.
Q-QUOTE? ummm......let me think about that one.....
R-REASON TO SMILE? living rent free
S-SUPERMAN OR WONDER WOMAN? Neither, I pick She-Ra!!!
T-TAG 5 PEOPLE? How about just who ever wants to be tagged?
U-UNKNOWN FACT ABOUT ME? I'm going to cheat on this one and do an unknown fact about Joel. I havent timed it yet, but I'm pretty sure he can fall asleep in under a minute flat.
V-VEGETABLES? cucumbers, carrots, corn, french cut green beans, green peppers.
W-WORST HABIT? ....oohhh so many, but today i'll say procrastination since I havent really started writing my talk for Sunday....
(X-X-RAY OR ULTRASOUND? I think i've only had one X-ray. It was at the Chiropractor's office. He said from the looks of it I almost had spine abifida....dont know if thats completely true, but i'm thankful that I dont have it!
Y-YOUR FAVORITE FOOD? it probably changes weekly, but right now it's a toss up between Hagendaaz creme brule ice cream or nachos with refried beans....delicious!!!!
Z-ZODIAC SIGN? Cancer

Massive Kite

2008-05-12T21:25:00.000-07:00

We decided a kite would be a must have for this spring and we were lucky to find this beauty.
What a wonderful investment. We were pretty sure it wouldn't get off the ground, but because of it's massive size it managed to make the most out of the little bit of wind there was.

Joel has fantastic kite wielding skills.

As you can see it was taller than both of us! how awesome is that?! We bought the kite around Easter, but since then we got some more string and a little dragon fly kite so we'll post some pics when we take them both out.

My new lens! ohhhh yeahhh!!!

2008-05-12T20:40:00.000-07:00

Yay!!!! My 50mm lens finally arrived last week after MUCH anticipation, but I haven't really had a chance to use it until today! This type of lens gives a sharp focus to whatever you focus on and then more blur to things that are closer and further away. It was so fun experimenting with it! Here are some of the first pics.

one of the last apricot blossoms

Tree branch and lens flare. I love lens flares! and I didn't even photoshop it in!
I couldn't decide which picture I liked the best so I had to put them all in Hayden is just so darn cute! He was trying to push all the dishwasher buttons when I was trying to take these pictures haha it was a good distraction.

just having fun with a marble

I really liked this picture of you Jess!

kisses! Dad and Hayden

Baby Brayden! He was totally smiling for us

Playing with that marble again. kind of a boring pic but I liked it!

odds and ends

2008-04-15T23:10:00.001-07:00

I uploaded a bunch of pictures from the little camera that I hadn't posted yet so here they are. They are pretty random and old but I thought I should share them none the less.This was our St Patricks day activity. I made a green cake (Joel supervised).

How funny is this, my mom's build a bear's glasses fit Hayden perfectly. He looks all grown up. what a cutie.

If you have a weak stomach I suggest that you skip this next one........it's pretty sick......

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Can anyone guess what this pile of gross-ness is?..............well it should have been hash browns..... I'm probably the only one who didnt know this, but I guess you're supposed to pre-cook the potatoes before you shred them or else they turn a weird pink color, and then this greyish bluish color. I don't think the potatoes were in their peak of freshness in the first place so that probably didn't help. Joel was brave and ate a few bites. Thanks for the help mom....I will call you before I cook next time ;o)
(the yellow pile on the left was eggs and sausage, they actually turned out alright)

and last but not least, we recently discovered that Joel has the ability to walk on walls.

Mad TV video

2008-04-11T23:17:00.000-07:00

Watch this video to understand our "pass or fail" basis for the following post about food.
This is also one of our favorite YouTube videos.

Gettin our blog on

2008-04-11T22:44:00.001-07:00

We are always learning new ways to pinch pennies. One way we discovered is to buy store brand items. We have also discovered that not all store brand items are created equal, so in an attempt to keep track of which ones we want to keep on our grocery list and which ones to forget about, we've decided to keep track of them on our blog. Hopefully this will be useful to our many readers as well. Our research is biased towards Kroger which is the "Smith's" store brand. We'll be adding any new items we test out to this same post. "This has passed"
We have found these Fruit and Grain bars to be equally delicious to the brand name bars.

"This has failed"
This apple sauce was really sour and didnt seem to have a very good flavor. It needed sugar.
"This has passed"
We've gone through like ten bottles of this stuff and still like it. We just read the label tonight and found out that it has about 26g of sugar though....figures.
"This has failed"
We found this cheese to be really dry and lacking flavor. We're not sure if all pre-grated chesses are like this, but we also tried Walmart's store brand and it was pretty nasty as well.

"This has passed"
It was nice and buttery, although nothing compares to movie theater popcorn.

"This has passed"
We thought these were really good! I liked these better than the name brand.

IOU

2008-04-07T21:22:00.000-07:00

Dear Blog,
I'm so sorry I've neglected you for so long! I'm just not the dedicated blogger I thought I'd be. There are so many things I want to blog about, but then I either forget about them by the time I get home or Joel is doing his homework on the computer (I'm not complaining about that, homework definitely takes precedence over blogging). I have decided to give you an IOU for some quality time together in the near future. In the mean time, here are some pictures of my cute nephew Brayden.

Tagged by Kristin!

2008-03-28T15:54:00.001-07:00

So Krisitn tagged me a while ago and I didnt even realize it! (sorry Kristin!)
I tag Joel, Jessica, Jon, and Melissa if any of you guys want to play.

If you're tagged, here's what you do. Post the words in all caps below and fill in info about yourself. Then, at the end you tell who you are tagging & go and tag 5 friends on their blogs. It's just a way to get to know fun little things about people.

TEN YEARS AGO.....
I was a “little sevie” at CVMS. I was enjoying middle school and being able to switch classrooms during the day. I remember that I loved my locker, but was having a difficult time using it since I couldn’t see the numbers at the top haha. (ohhh Kristin, the pink cookies??!!! I loved those) I was also terrified of 9th graders (mostly the boys) who would run down the hallway in a big train and trample anyone who came in their way. It was also a well known fact that they stuffed harmless 7th graders in garbage cans.

FIVE PLACES I HAVE LIVED.....
Sugar House, UT
Draper,UT
Orem, UT
……that’s it!

FIVE THINGS ON MY TO DO LIST......
change our address at the bank…..
Exersice
Clean house
Try a few Gelato recipes I found online
Joel, we need to fly our kite asap! (we bought a 6 ft tall kite! Sweet huh! Haven’t flown it yet though. We’ll be sure to take some pics and post them when we do)

I ENJOY....(in no specific order)
The smell of Spray and Wash and Wisk laundry detergent, cookies, doing anything with Joel, Joel’s fluffy hair ;) haha, hanging out with our families, hanging out with friends, flowers, playing with other peoples kittens and puppies …… hiking, play bolleyboll….jk ;) the movie Lagaan (it’s a movie about some townspeople in India who learn to play cricket so they don’t have to pay taxes to English tyrants. It has awesome music too! I highly recommend it.), learning new things on Photoshop and learning new things about my camera, being healthy, dessert….(which conflicts with my previous item)…. New clothes…..(sigh) the list could go on and on!

THREE BAD HABITS.....
Eating WAY too much sugar and other junk food with no exercise (Kristin, I have to agree with you on this one!)
Not cleaning up after myself…..sorry Joel….
I’m really bad at keeping in touch with people
I don’t like throwing memorable items away (big surprise to my family ;)

FIVE THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT ME.....
I could spend (and have spent) hours glued to the computer photoshopping pictures!
I used to be in an irish dance group
I have a stamp collection
I can play “you are my sunshine” on the harmonica
I really like to make tie dye shirts

FIVE JOBS THAT I HAVE HAD.....
Cashier at Alta Dry Cleaners (good times! Haha)
Cashier at All My Memories
Customer Service Rep at CONTACTS
Quality Auditor at CONTACTS

Kalli and Joel skiing at the Canyons

2008-03-26T23:53:00.000-07:00

In January, I dragged Kalli up to the slopes to go skiing with me (It was awesome!) . She was amazing(brownie pt #1). We had a good time, but only stayed a few hours due to fatigue (on my part! skiing's tough!). I was in heaven, skiing with my wife (ahh, b. pt #2); Life is great! The videos were taken with our digital camera. We managed to video the only fall Kalli had all day (B. pt #3, although this was definitly not the only fall I had all day) I think she got a little nervous of those people sitting right where she was heading! You can see Joel's ski videos by clicking here
Kalli's notes in green

Joel and Justin on the Canyons playground

2008-03-25T13:42:00.001-07:00

These are some of the sweeter pictures of Justin and me at the canyons in March.

Ooooh Snap!

2008-03-23T12:58:00.000-07:00

I just found this quiz on someone elses blog
and thought it was sweet! I dont know how
"spicy" my sense of humor is, but I do looovve
Gingersnaps. Let me know what cookie you
are after you take it :)

2008-03-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

So we were lucky enough to see one of Eric's soccer games, it was so cute! All the kids were pretty young so they didnt totally understand what they were supposed to be doing but it was hillarious to watch. Eric did such a great job and he is one tough golie! I loved this picture of his "game face".

So we went to this park after Eric's soccer game where they were having some Easter activities and they had an area with a bunch of little animals you could pet. Can you believe how cute this black bunny is???? I want one!!! We were petting the baby goat through the fence and some how it squoze (sp?) it's way through the fence! lol! Luckily Joel grabbed it before it ran off :).

These are some pictures at the AZ Temple. We walked around and checked out all the sweet plants and then watched the Easter pagent on the Temple lawn.

K, so I obviously haven't figured out how to format my posts...

AZ trip

2008-03-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

Joel and I went down to AZ to visit Julie and Nick this past week. It was so fun! I wish I could say I'm happy to be back but the weather was sooo nice, and the company couldnt have been better...it was hard to leave! Ohhhh man, it totally made us even more excited for summer. Here are a few pictures from our awesome week.

2008-03-08T19:35:00.001-08:00

first post!

2008-03-07T21:00:00.000-08:00

Yay! The first post on our shiny new blog.
We decided to make this for our date tonight. It's a little more complicated than I thought, but it will be well worth it.
So for all those who want to know the nitty gritty about Joel and Kalli I will now tell you.
Joel is going to school at UVSC and......loving it?..... I'm still working at Contacts and working on my photography skills.
We recently moved out of our cozy cookie carton in Orem and into a haunted mansion in Draper...ok it's a basement....but we're pretty sure it's haunted.
Aside from the hauntedness, we really enjoy it and are very greatfull to be living here at such a low cost. We love being closer to our families!
Well this will be it for now. Next mission: beautification of blog. Jess, how do you get the scrapbook paper on here?