Look What I Can Do!

So I tried my very first Pinterest recipe! It's called Chicken Pillows and I was really happy with my results. They joke out there that when you try Pinterest recipes they never seem to turn out like they look online so I wasn't expecting mine to come out as well, especially since I accidentally got the wrong kind of rolls for it, but lookie at how they turned out...

This is the online/Pinterest version
Find it here

This is mine, only reason it was broken open is because I
Had to make sure the chicken was all cooked through

And they tasted pretty good if I do say so myself. I was really impressed with myself, it was my first real meal! I mean I've been trying about two new recipes each week for the past month and a half, but I always look and try for the 30 min. meals, this one took a little longer and there was actual effort needing to go into it. Next on the list for real meals is Garlic Pesto Chicken with Tomato Cream Penne which has to marinate overnight, that'll be tomorrow's dinner so hopefully that comes out just as good!

Happy Halloween Ya'll!

May it be plenty spooky and fun for you guys!

All Ready For Halloween!

So today we got to go visit a pumpkin patch with Skyler and Jena (and of course Cailyn came along, but she was asleep the whole time). I've never been to one of them before, not sure Larry has either, so it was pretty cool to go and pick out our own pumpkin out of the SO many they had there, I was nervous waiting till the weekend before Halloween would be cutting it close, but I think we found a pretty good pumpkin and for only $5 it wasn't a terrible deal either! I also decided this year to bake the pumpkin seeds to see how they would taste and I think they came out really really good, especially for my first time!

Our Pumpkin pictures:

So I decided we need to get back into celebrating Halloween for the following reasons: Now that I've celebrated it and then went back to not celebrating it I see that it really helps me get through the day better when I have fun with it; We are in our own place with new kids to have for Trick-Or-Treating; and I now don't have a job where I'm working really late so I can actually get home at a decent time, watch scary movies in our (super nice) living room and just wait for the kids to come by for candy (which, by the way, I've bought A TON of!). Since we are celebrating it after the pumpkin patch we decided to go to the Halloween Store and get our costumes and some cool decorations so now our house is ready for Trick-or-Treaters! Yippee!

So it's not A TON of decorations, but it was last minute and with our pumpkin I thought it was a good start. That lady creeped me out but I thought she'd be cool to have around. Larry wants to put her up on the door, but now that we have the "Trick or Treat" sign I think she'll be good on the balcony for people out that way to see. I'm pretty excited. I'll have to put up pictures once we're all dressed up in our costumes too. But for now I'm REALLY excited for Halloween-I already split up our candy into two bowls: 1 for us and 1 for kids :)

Now just gotta wait till Wednesday for the actual holiday. It's already started snowing so it's starting to REALLY feel like the holiday season...I love this time of year :)

Phase One complete!

So yesterday I went over to my 2nd Lasik consultation at Hoopes Vision. I'll admit when I started this whole thing I was leaning way more towards Hoopes. I knew about them from their commercials, I knew someone who had gone through them, I had 2 eye Dr recommendations for them, and it seemed like they'd be the cheaper option. On paper they came out to be the best one, but I knew I wanted to at least make sure I looked into more than one to see that I was making the best choice.

After going to both consultations, I have to say The Eye Institute of Utah is a MUCH better choice for me! First of all, they were honest in telling me Lasik would be an okay option, but PRK would probably be better for me (in Lasik they peel back a section of the cornea, do the laser treatment, then they put the flap of the cornea back into place as a holder. In PRK they completely shave a thinner layer of the cornea off, do the laser treatment, then put a contact onto the eye to let it heal and re-create the layer that was shaved off and then after 5 days they remove the contact). It's a longer healing period, but they said it should produce more successful results and it's cheaper-PLUS they mentioned if you're in the military or police force they usually prefer them to have this one done (if you want to go into the Marines you can ONLY have PRK done).

I really felt The Eye Institute was more empathetic, less salesman-y, and overall more considerate towards my situation. They were honest without being scary and I felt they didn't just keep passing me off to the next person (I saw 2 people with them VS Hoopes it had to have been around 8 different people), so after seeing both facilities and considering the options I scheduled it for Nov 30th, which means by Christmas I should have (hopefully) 20/20 vision with NO glasses or contacts!!!

EEEEESH! This is so exciting and surreal for me! I have been wanting this since I was 16 years old and I never thought it would REALLY happen, just wishful thinking. I keep thinking of how amazing it will be when I'm finally there, the things I'll be able to see and do without any tethers (things like reading my alarm clock, seeing all the Christmas lights, going to bed without having to pause to take something off our out of my eyes!). The best part, for me, is this means in one year I'll have had my top two needed surgeries I've wanted-I got my wisdom teeth out earlier this year and then this! What a great year this is turning out to be.

Now Phase Two: Get the Lasik and finally see everything! Only 35 more days till I go in!

Great News!

So the last 24 hours have been really good to me! I'll tell you why:

• I found a medical clinic that will do a physical for me. I've been wanting to do one for a very long time now, just to make sure all my systems are working properly and to know that there's nothing to worry about. The best part about this is with my insurance preventative care is free, so I just need to pay my co pay and then I'll be good. I like to know I'll be starting the next year PLUS marriage in a healthy way. Don't even ask my why that's important, but to me it is :)

• I went to my first lasik consultation today and found out I am a great candidate for lasik. They actually suggested this other procedure, PRK, would be best for me because my corneas are so thin as it is and PRK doesn't need as much to correct my vision, plus they said I'd probably have a higher success rate with it AND it's cheaper than regular lasik so, really, it's better all around :) The ONLY negative is it has a longer healing period, so I'd have to take more time off of work than I intended, but it should be worth it. They told me if you are in the marines they will ONLY allow this procedure so if it's good enough for them, I think it's good enough for me, but we'll see what Hoopes says next week and I'll compare the two. But hopefully by next Friday I'll have the appointment set up to go in and get it taken care of...YAY!

• We found a new photographer! The big bonus is she'll be cheap enough we can afford a videographer as well, I wasn't sure I really wanted a videographer, but we were going to get a couple hours in our original package with Natalie and I've heard a lot of people say they loved having one at their wedding or wished they had had one. Plus I saw a post on facebook once of a cute tradition where a couple watched their wedding video on their anniversary to relive their day and I thought that was cute (not to mention a good idea since I heard most couples barely even remember their wedding day). I'm really happy to be back in the game with the wedding plans, I felt like I was never going to find someone I wanted or would fit into our budget (which I thought would be a lot, but apparently not)

Today has been such a great day off, so productive and helpful and I'm back to feeling like our wedding will be great again! So until I have something new to post about...

8 years and going strong!

So Larry and I just celebrated 8 wonderful years together on Monday! I love Larry, more than anything else, but sometimes it's REALLY hard to figure out what to get him or do for him that he would like and would show him how much I love him and appreciate him after all this time. I kind of did our celebration on Sunday. To know why I got him was a decent gift, you have to know now that we live on our own and furthur from everyone else; it's really just us...no one else. No one comes to visit us, we just do things all on our own. There have been so many times where Larry says "Go get a game for us to play!" and when I go I realize all our games are 4+ players. When we get food we get so much food I forget we only need to get stuff for two of us. It's been an adjustment, not a hard one, but one indeed. So anyways, for our anniversary I went out and got a whole bunch of two player games, so that we could play together and have fun with just us and not need to feel like we need visitors just to have fun. I was really excited about it actually, we've played them all a few times and I've had so much fun spending more time with Larry and laughing our butts off. One of my new favorites is called Headbandz, it's one where you have a card that attaches to a headband so the other player can see it and then you ask yes/no questions to figure out what's written on the card.

So back to Sunday: Larry had drill so I made sure our house was SUPER cleaned for him to come home to and set the games up so he could see them and know I got them as a gift for us so we can spend more time together. I told him I knew it was kind of cheesy and it was more for us than him, so I told him if he got me anything he can save it for christmas or my birthday, but I guess I was too late because...

I got a nice little surprise once I got to work. I absolutely love getting flowers from him, he's so good at picking pretty ones out. We also ended up going out to dinner at Olive Garden, which I haven't been to in forever, it was YUMMY! and then I challenged him to an ultimate Headbandz showdown :) I feel it was one of our funnest anniversaries we've had, but I also think we're getting to the stage where maybe we should start traveling for our anniversary and going out to new places to try together. I'm hoping he'll be on board with it...I love traveling and he and I travel so well together!

Well here's to 8 years so far....and MANY MANY more to come...by this time next year we'll be an old married couple I'm sure. I can't wait to call him my husband!