Fueling our inner Nerd

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

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

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

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

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

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.