Winter is back

So remember when I was talking about how warm this winter has been and how weird, but kind of nice, it was? Well apparently that lovely warm weather we were experiencing was winter on vacation or something:

Yup, we've officially been hit with snow again. I didn't want to believe it and really tried to live in my denial, but then I woke up to this:

Yeah, you pretty much can't deny it when you're walking through it. The sad part is it's still not enough to do anything with. By the next day it's all melted away. So no sledding, no snowmen, nothing!

Oh well, I'm giving Mother Nature 20 more days to get it all out of her system. Then it's Spring Time and I fully expect there to be a Spring Time on time this year! Happy February everyone (almost March)

Oh yeah, and look at how adorable my kitties are (because I have to include them in the blog once in a while):

The Oscars

Did anyone else watch The Oscars this year? I have to say I've never really been into award season, but this year I have watched almost all of them and I have loved getting into it. Unfortunately I haven't seen a single movie that is up for an award, but my Netflix list has been updated to change that. I made a joke to Larry that this year we need to see them before award season because I am getting hit with spoilers everywhere. The Oscars were fantastic, I watched the pre-show stuff on E! where they see all the fashion and interview all the A-List celebs and was in such awe! I would love so much to go to an awards show, even if it was just as a seat filler.

Here I was watching The Oscars with my Oscar (even though it was the Pre-Show I'm still counting it). I can't believe how many awards The Grand Budapest Hotel went away with. But I am SO SO SO happy that Eddie Redmayne won Best Actor, I wanted to see The Theory of Everything since I heard about it and I'm not sure why, but Eddie is becoming a quick favorite of mine. I'm very intrigued by his career so far and I hope he keeps making good choices. I first saw him Les Miserables and I loved him in that (I actually loved that movie way more than I thought I would!), so it'll be nice to see what else he comes out with. I think it was his award speech at one of the shows where he had just gotten back from his wedding and told his wife that they would continue their honeymoon after the award season and I thought "how sweet is that? She's willing to give up part of her honeymoon and he just appreciates the crap out of that!" After that I was a fan. Anyways, I just wanted to post about how excited I am for the awards season and can't wait to see what's coming out this year to watch for next year :)

Cucina Toscana

Ok, so I'm not a foodie-type person, but oh man if you are I have a restaurant for you to try: The Cucina Toscana! I was lucky enough to be able to try this food, even though I 1) had never heard of this place before and 2) wasn't technically invited to the event, but still went haha.

Larry found out last week that his work was having a dinner for the Utah peeps since they had one in Chicago for all the local workers. Well the choices were between The Rooftop at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and something call Oceana (I think that's what it was). Well I was joking with Larry that if I got to go I was hoping it'd be the The Rooftop, but if I didn't then it could be Oceana since I had no idea what that was. Well then he found out it would be The Rooftop I started bugging him to find out if spouses could go because I knew their food was so yummy. Well the day of the dinner he had off to update his Military ID, but he happened to login in time to see it had switched to the Cucina Toscana, which I still hadn't heard about, and he said they didn't say it was only for employees so he assumed spouses could go. I immediately looked up the restaurant to see what kind of food it was and when I saw it was Italian and had a dressy dress code I was pretty excited to see what this place would be like.

Look how cute it is! It's this little restaurant downtown. I'm not sure how they found it, but I'm glad they did. I was so impressed because they had rented out a huge room and had fancy place setting for us ready to use and a cute little menu for our specific group.

I could've sworn I had seen other couples around the room so when one of the heads of the office, Jeb, came over to talk to us I mentioned how I was happy that I could come and be a part of this. I later learned that there were absolutely no other couples and I was the only spouse...talk about awkward! Oh well, that was at the end of the night, they had room for me, and I feel I was a pretty fun date. I ended up talking to Jeb more than Larry about travels, fun future plans, and even a little business (he asked about what I did and we started talking about future work plans). I was a little nervous to have someone so high up sit with us, but we ended up laughing a lot and seeing Larry in his work element with others was so nice (I hardly ever see Larry socializing with others so it's nice when I do get to see other sides of him), plus I couldn't help but beam when I saw how much they loved Larry and all his hard work. That's my husband folks! I wish I had taken more pictures of the night (we were looking pretty fancy, if I do say so), but I was enjoying the food and the company so much. It was a 4 course meal and every bite was amazing! I actually ate everything on my plate, even the vegetables! I hope I can go back one day and try other things, but if not at least I'll get to say I tried it once.

A Jazz Game and then some...

Oh my gosh, I had the BEST sporting experience ever last night! Friday I got invited to my company's suite at the ESA for a Jazz game (basketball, for those unfamiliar). I've never been to a suite, much less THE Executive Suite!!! I was told that they have the best food and after being in the chairs there you never want to sit in the regular seats again, but I don't think I really comprehended the advise. I got to go with some fun people at my work: Paige, Rachel, and Victor who all made it fun and funny (Although, I do feel I may not have been on my A game that night as there were MANY awkward comments made, and I do apologize to them for that, but I still had fun!). It was pretty funny because us girls all rode up together and Victor came up later, so while we got in and waited for him we decided to just check out the suite first. Well we went up to the area where they are and the guy told us to just head left and we'd hit ours. Well my ticket said suite 18 (at least, I thought it said that), so we found suite 18 and went in. There was a lady there that was serving the food so we greeted her and started taking our usual girlie selfies and "look where we're at" pictures. Well after taking pictures, putting my jacket and purse away, and almost using the bathroom we realized we were in the wrong place. It turns out my ticket said SEAT 18, not Suite 18. So we hurriedly grabbed our stuff and headed out, glad the lady was gone and couldn't witness our blonde moment haha.



Pictures from the wrong suite :)

Turns out The Executive Suite is WAY fancier. It was bigger, had better food, and I think much better seats. The food was beyond amazing, the drinks were awesome, the waiters (is that what they are referred to in these??) were so nice and helpful, and the seats were so comfortable! The game was awesome too because we beat the Portland Trailblazers by...well I don't know the final score, but when we left in the 4th quarter with a minute to go we were up by like 12 so I'm sure we held up that last minute to win still :)

From the real suite

It's nice because I haven't been to a Jazz game in AGES! Like probably 10 years, but I used to be REALLY into the games. I think one season my mom had season tickets (or kept winning them or something, because we went to, what felt like, every other home game) and after that we never really went again. I didn't even know the players this time around, but I already found my favorite: #33 Booker. He was pretty awesome and had a high jump, I was just really impressed with him. So overall a nice experience, and it made me want to start going to games again...hopefully we can. If you ever get a chance to go in the suite, take it up!!

President's Day Weekend

Yes, I know this also happens to be Valentine's Day Weekend, but I get the day off for President's Day and so I'm really celebrating that :)

This weekend was so nice! I couldn't believe how much I needed a 3-day weekend until now. I feel it was pretty eventful as well.

Friday night we went to go see 50 Shades of Gray! Again, hate it all you want, but I absolutely LOVED the movie! I feel it held up pretty well to the books, only skipping minor details and only a couple ones I think were pretty major. I seriously didn't want it to end. I remember at one point thinking "oh no, it's probably going to end soon...no wait there where 3 scenes from the trailer that haven't been shown yet." Then 10 minutes later thinking "crap there were those three scenes, now it can end at any moment!" Seriously, those were my thoughts. The ending caught me so off guard because I had forgotten how the movie ended (spoiler alert, it ends with her leaving and that's it!), so that was upsetting, but I'm glad it left it open for the 2nd one, which I already can't wait to see. I told Larry as we were leaving that I already wanted to go see it again, and I still do! It's one I'm definitely owning.

I swoon!
Seriously, the actors did pretty well
With their roles.

Saturday, we FINALLY got rid of our junk pile from our de-cluttering! We had to go down to American Fork to drop it all off and then just kind of drove around and ended up lost in Orem...you say it can't happen, but that's not true. I mean, we were near the freeway so we could've gotten out at any time, but I was really enjoying seeing all the new areas I wasn't familiar with. After that we came home and relaxed for a while. I will say it's really nice to not have our big pile of junk in our home anymore. It made it feel more cluttered. Although, I feel like I'm still finding stuff we can get rid of, I'll wait till I'm ready to clean again before really deciding

Sunday is our usual laundry, grocery shopping, Skype with my family, and relax day so not much to report here.

Monday was only a day off for me so Larry worked as usual. But man, did I love sleeping in! It felt so nice. I just sat and watched movies off our DVR, took a nap at some point, bugged Larry while he worked, and texted my mom about DVR movies she was watching as well. It was soooo needed.

It was funny because Oscar was my shadow all day. If I was laying down he had to come cuddle with me, if I was walking around he'd be right next to me. Well at one point I had to go fill up gas, so I was literally gone 2-5 minutes. When I got home he came running up to me and Larry said he was meowing the whole time I was gone like he was looking for me.

I  know he looks angry with me in that picture, but that's only because he was "taking a bath" and I interrupted him for a picture, which he doesn't seem to like taking usually. Really he was my little cuddle bug.

So that was our whole President's Day Weekend. While Larry was upset to have to work while I had Monday off, he did remind me he has next Monday off to use up some PTO so I'm sure he'll be rubbing in my face that he got a 3-day weekend as well :)

Hope everyone else out there had a nice weekend!