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!

Winter Time?

You guys, I was driving home from work today and my car's temperature gauge told me it was 64 degrees today..Today, February 5th! We should be in the dead middle of winter here and instead I'm barely wanting to wear a jacket. Look at this:

The sad part is I kind of made Larry buy us tubes last month because I figured the warm weather would go away eventually and we'd get a nice snow storm eventually. I don't think that anymore, obviously. This is the weirdest winter I've ever seen in my 27 years, granted the first like 12 I don't recall very well. At first I was really bummed, I really wanted snow and time to do all the fun winter stuff (sledding, skiing, building a snowman, drinking hot chocolate), but now that we are into February I'm okay if we just stay warm from here on out.

The only down side is it makes me want to take a vacation really bad. I know we have NY coming up, but I want to do a road trip. I've kind of started looking at Las Vegas deals, I think we may go next month just so we can get out for a quick weekend getaway.

The good news is it's just about tax time. We're just waiting on one of Larry's W-2's and then we can finally file ours. I'm pretty stoked. I did mine online just to see what it would look like and I can't hate what it told me. But I can't do part of mine unless we file jointly so I have to wait still (patience isn't my strong suit, let me just say that).

I haven't done anything of much note, but here's what the last week has looked like so far:

Last weekend I decided to go out on a drive and ended up calling my mom while walking around Kohl's. She was grocery shopping so we were commenting on things we saw and everything so it kind of felt like we went shopping together...it was nice! I miss weekend shopping trips with my mom (we used to just walk around stores all the time, not necessarily buying something, just walking around). Then last night Cindy, Grandma, and my cousins all came over and we got to hang out for a few hours. It was nice to meet up with them and catch up. Larry was helping fix Cindy's computer (he's such an awesome husband, helping out my family without complaining or asking for anything in return. He even said it was nice to have a computer to tinker with again haha) so we were waiting for everything to get moved over while talking about everything from babies, to buying new houses, to roller coasters and a bunch of stuff in between. Playing with the girls was fun, while they weren't crying, and seeing baby Olivia is always fun (she's in a smiley stage and is so adorable)!

We also bought our tickets to go see Fifty Shades of Grey last weekend. Say what you will about how it's basically porn, I don't care. I'm not saying it's the best entertainment, but I thought the books were interesting and I'm definitely curious to see how the movies are. I'm not too excited about casting, but we'll see how well it comes across, I'll keep an open mind (even though Twilight really makes that hard to do now!).

Larry goes to class, works from home every day now, and plays his games. I've just had such crazy work weeks when I get home I just love to relax so we're both pretty much full of thrills over here haha. I have gotten back into working out. We both go Mondays and Wednesday and I'll be including Saturdays starting this weekend. I forgot how much I really love to run, but man was I so so sore after Monday this week. We didn't go last night because of family being over (I'm not complaining though), so I skipped then, but Saturday I can make up for it. Larry got me a heart monitor watch thing so I'm excited to wear it to see what my body goes through and where I can improve things.

That's pretty much been February so far, not too much excitement going on, but thanks for reading anyways :)

January

Wow that first month went by crazy fast! Did anyone else think so? I mean, mine might have to do with a combination of BUSY, busy work weeks and looking forwards to things later in the year, but it really rushed by. I wanted to do a quick update of things I was pretty happy about since the last time I posted:

• We did SO good this month on making sure dishes were done quickly instead of just sitting in the sink waiting for the dishwasher or whatever. I think there was really only one or two times they weren't done right then and there, but I'm excited we've gotten into the habit of getting them done now (it's funny how things you get excited about later in life aren't all that exciting, huh?)
• I'm officially done with our decluttering of the house. It took all month long and we still have to take our huge donation pile to the DI, but I'm happy to say it's done! We also sold a couple items so that was really nice and got rid of some stuff we really didn't need to be holding on to.
• I got a new phone! Oh man was that months in the making. I used to have a Galaxy S3, and when I got it I didn't even try out other phones. I walked in telling them that's what I wanted. Well while I was waiting for them to activate it I played with the HTC One for a bit and thought I should've really compared the two before deciding on one, but I took the Galaxy anyways. I didn't like it from day one! I hated how it texted and it just always seemed to have issues. I think I might have gotten a defective one or something. Well this last weekend I decided enough was enough and we went down to the store and got me an HTC One and I absolutely LOVE IT!!! It takes pictures like a boss, the texting is so cool, there were a couple issues up front, but after a few updates (seriously there were like 5 in the first week!) it's finally up to what I wanted and it's the best! I definitely recommend this phone to others who like taking pictures and texting the most.
• We decided to go to dinner last week (we usually always go on the 15th of each month as that day has always held something special to us, but this time it was just because I didn't want to cook haha) and while we were waiting for our table this little girl, that was about 4 or 5, came up to me to tell me I'm pretty. It completely melted my heart! Plus, it made me glad we did decide to go out. Kids are so adorable! Now Larry and I call each other pretty all the time haha.
• I started playing my Castle game and boy did I get completely hooked on it! I wish all the shows I like had a game like that. I didn't want to stop playing it! It was a combination of the I-Spy stuff and solving a mystery using puzzles and clues. I'm sad to say I'm done with it now, but I didn't complete all the puzzles so I may create a new profile and do it again haha.
• I kind of started working out again. I tell you skipping 3-4 months makes it so hard to go back, I don't know why I stopped and could just kick myself! Well Larry usually goes running on Mondays and Wednesdays and so I started going with him and doing the Fat-Burn cycle/option on the treadmills and those helped get me excited to get back in the exercise game. I've decided to start running with Larry now and also Saturday mornings. I never thought I'd be one to miss working out, but I really do! And I've got a cool new heart monitor watch thing to help me keep track!
• This one is silly, but I've learned the therapeutic powers of music! I don't know that I need to go into specifics, but changing up what I listen to has really helped me de-compress at the end of the day. It's really made this already one of the best years I've had!

I guess that's all that really happened, besides more crazy work stuff. Now onto the stuff I'm looking forward to:

• Now that decluttering is done I plan on going through the house and super cleaning it. I haven't been able to do that in so long so it'll be nice to get it done. With it just being the two of us it hardly needs to be cleaned that much as often (which is weird to me, because I'm used to cleaning like that once a week). I figure once a month should be good enough.
• I was hoping to go sledding and skiing this month, but it looks like we're never going to have enough snow to get that done. Maybe next year? (I'm very bummed, I'd like to point that out,  because every winter I've seen people sledding and thought I want to do that so much! Now we finally have tubes to go with them and there's no snow)
• Larry gave me a shopping spree for my birthday, but I didn't use it in December because of Christmas and January I was busy organizing our home and getting rid of stuff so I get to look forward to that in February as well.
• There's a three day weekend in the middle of the month that makes me really excited. Larry and I talked about going to Vegas (I've been craving a mini road-trip or vacation lately), but I realized a certain movie comes out that weekend and I've been looking forward to that for like 6 months now so I think we'll skip Vegas for that and go another time.
• I've noticed this last week I've gotten lazy and I think this is probably the timing of when I've given up on my resolutions in the past. Now that I recognize it I'm going to force myself through it and hopefully that will help me make changes.
• The Superbowl is today! We've never watched it at our home, but I really enjoy watching it so that will be my evening. I think I'm actually going to watch the Kitten Bowl this year too because...well why not? They are adorable!

I think that's all I had for this. I hope everyone has had a good beginning of the year as well! Happy 1/12th of 2015 :)