Saturday, March 31, 2012

Get yer redneck on!

Every winter my whole family likes to get our redneck on.
We meet meet up first thing in the morning and have breakfast and then head out to the desert to shoot guns and eat hot dogs.
Its a fun tradition. This year, because this winter has been so bizarre, it was fantastic! The weather was perfect!
We sat around the fire and talked.
Every year the guys do a an Annie Oakley shoot off. I am very proud to say that Russ's first trip out to the family dessert day and he won! He beat out a good 10+ shooters! I was proud. Plus we walked away with some ciz-ash.
Cody and Kam and their family were in town for the occasion.
Whats the desert and a camp fire without some hot dogs?
My cute Dad
Always a good time on Desert Day! Especially when its not freezing cold :)

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Since the Honeymoon...

We have done lots of fun things in the 4 months we have been married!
I was going through my phone pictures and saw some fun times I wanted to post about, so please excuse the quality of the pictures.
We both had birthdays. My birthday is the end of November and his is the beginning of January.
For my birthday, we started the day off right! He brought me breakfast in bed. He even put candles in my pancakes :) I have a really cute picture of him bringing it in with my best girl Ecko in tow but I will spare him a picture in his jammies this time.
We went to Tucanos! It was delicious. I love their fruity drinks and who does love a bunch of meat walking around arriving on your plate? My brother and his wife were in town so we went over to my parents and played games. Russ said he would make any kind of birthday cake for me I wanted..I opted for peach cobbler in the dutch oven. It was delish.
I even got a birthday hug from Ecko. She gives the best hugs.
If you see that big box next to me, that was one of my birthday presents from Russ. The trickster taped my tiny new Ipod Nano to the bottom of that huge box. I love my new nano! Its so nice not hauling my Iphone to the gym and having this big bulky thing on my arm.
Anyway, I cant believe I am just a couple yrs away from 30. Yikes.
Ive been lots better about putting anti wrinkle cream on every day and taking lots of vitamins. Ill try my best to stay looking young dang it.
I am a penny pincher when it comes to a lot of things. I would rather spend my money on traveling than other things I dont need. I went a few years without even owning a TV. I got a TV a couple yrs ago but I couldnt stand the thought of paying for cable when there is a million other things to do. Turns out marrying Russ comes with cable. So I now no longer read as much (If you can tell on my side bar, Ive been reading "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" for about 3 months now) and pretty sure Ive gained too much weight eating oreos and watching TV. But thank you Oreo for making a non chocolate cookie.I appreciate it. And happy late 100th birthday to you.
January came around. I cant think of anything I like about January except for Russ's birthday!!
3 days into my new job and one day before Russ's birthday, I thought it would be a good idea to eat a sandwich that had been sitting in my car all day. Not only had it been sitting in the car all day, I had used a mayo on that sandwich that had also gone bad due to sitting in a mini fridge that was not plugged in. So, I got food poisoning and was wicked sick.
My new hubby came home from work with a can of chicken noodle soup, or 2 or 3 or 7...
He plops a grocery bag of 7 different kinds of chicken noodle soup, crackers, sprite, Gatorade, and all fruit Popsicles. He really took the "In sickness" part seriously. I wanted to get feeling better so bad the next day for his birthday!
Russ wanted BBQ for his birthday. If you have been sick ALL the day before, BBQ is like the last thing I wanted to eat, but I pretended like it wasnt a big deal and went along with it.
The second we walked in I swear I felt better. I love BBQ almost as much as he does. I ended up eating my whole plate of BBQ and never felt better.
Happy Birthday Russ!
Also in January, the first month into my new job I was already attending an event in San Diego!
One of my great friends Emilie lives a couple hrs away from San Diego so she came down and met me!
We took a water taxi over to Coronado beach and had pizza :)
Unfortunately, we ate so many garlic knots before the pizza came out we didnt get to eat much pizza. I thought since I would be staying another 3 days I would just take it back to the hotel and enjoy it in the coming days. I had the cutest, nicest hotel and that stupid room didnt have a refrigerator! So I made my own.
You would think after just a few short weeks before having terrible food poisoning I would be a little more careful. But I was really faithful at keeping ice in the bottom and in those glasses, it worked like a charm!
Russ really wanted to come along, and since he didnt get to, I bought him an awesome souvenir to make up for it.
A sipsational!
He obviously forgave me.
We went up to Idaho for a fun weekend in the snow!
I miss these kiddos.
Russ thought it was a special enough occasion to bring his Dicky.
Speaking of this picture, I love the new app "fatify". We now know what could happen if we dont get our eating habits in check.
February! Something exciting happened in February. I paid off my first car ever!
That was a fun day. But as you know from a previous post, we sold that car. Very, very sad day for me. I cant believe how much I did love that car, but Russ wanted something with fewer miles and I can understand that. So I had to say goodbye. The girl that bought it from me looked exactly like Audrey Hepburn.
I thought it would be fun to decorate for Valentines Day! Last year I made this really cute Valentine craft
Well after my basement flooded last year, all my decor was still in my garage. So I went digging through my boxes and found it!
Dang mice. They ate my whole craft!!!
I was seriously so mad. I was speechless. There was only one full candy left up top and it said "reach for it". After a couple seconds of silence Russ said "I guess he couldnt reach it".
Thanks to pintrest I made these cute treats for my new coworkers.
Russ surprised me at work with beautiful bouquet of flowers on Vday. It made me super happy.
I spent the whole day making him a deck of cards with 52 reasons why I love him.
He got me a new Iphone4s. I guess I kind of dropped the ball there.
One weekend we decided to go up to Logan (where we met) to go to one of the USU Basketball games.
It was a fun weekend! We went to the game..
We went hot tubbing at our hotel, went to a movie, went to our old favorite restaurants, and enjoyed some actual snow this year!
It was a fun get away.
Speaking of snow, I cant believe how its snowed about 3 times this whole year.
Ecko enjoyed the few snow storms we had.
And now can you believe it? Its officially spring :)

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

St Maarten

Well, I said goodbye to my car tonight. That was a sad day. I seriously loved that car. But my very smart hubby thought it would be wise to get a car with lower miles. So, I have a new car, still sad to see the old one go.
We have been married 4 months now, and I am still not finished blogging about our honeymoon!
St Maarten was our last stop on our cruise. I was really looking forward to seeing St. Maarten and it did not disappoint. The water was the bluest Ive ever seen!
I had read about the "airport beach" and had seen youtubes on it so the second we got there, we hopped a cab and went directly to the beach to see the airplanes come in.
I dont know what it is about seeing big airplanes, but I LOVE it. I could watch them land and take off all day long. Whenever I am driving past the SL airport...which is everyday, I love watching the planes coming in and out.
This was AWESOME. If any of you are looking for a vacation, I would strongly recommend St Maarten and you HAVE to go to the airport beach!!
We hopped in a cab, and it was just Russ and I in this big van. The AC did not work and we got stuck in traffic due to an accident. It was miserable! By the time we got to the beach, it looked like Russ has just had a serious work out he was sweating so bad. Totally worth it for this blue water!
If you look closely, you can see a plane coming in.
The Airport beach is exactly what it sounds like. You get to play in the most beautiful crystal clear water while planes literally land right above you. The airport runway is just feet from the beach.
If you look close again, you can see Russ holding up the video camera. Isnt that nuts?
Its SOOOO loud.
Warning sign.
You could literally hold on to the fence while a big jet was taking off and it felt like you were going to lift right off the ground, your ears were going to explode, and the sand was going to make millions of little cuts all over your body. It was totally awesome. After Russ and I stood under a few huge planes and next to the fence while they were taking off, one was particularly loud and Russ looks at me and said "that shook me up" Most everyone would stand strong for a few seconds and then bail away because the sand is pelting your face and you want to plug your ears. Russ had the fantastic idea of going up to the fence with his snorkel gear on. Smart I thought! I also thought he looked great standing there with all the others with his snorkel gear on waiting for the plane to take off.
Can you say tourist? Camera and video camera going at the same time. No its cool, we like to stick out like a sore thumb when we travel.
I could have stayed at that beach all day, but Russ was ready for a change of pace after a couple hours. We took a walk through town and asked some locals where some good beaches were. We ended up walking to a really pretty beach that we almost had to ourselves!...besides all the topless women around us. I think Russ must have paid the locals under the table to tell us where the topless beach was. Dont worry, Ill spare you from seeing old, droopy leathery boobs.

We spent lots of time swimming in the ocean. A nice man took a picture of us in the water. I thought it was nice of him to capture me looking like a doofus.
After playing around in the water for a bit, we had lunch on the beach. Now I'll ask you this. Can you think of anything better then being on your honeymoon, at a fantastic beach, a fresh facial from sand being blown at your face at a hundred miles and RIBS ON THE BEACH?? Yeah, I cant think of anything better either. Ribs and fries.
Look at this cute picture of Russell walking down the beach. Magazine quality right there.
We walked back to the airport beach for a quick goodbye before catching a cab to take us back to our boat.
As soon as something that big and close goes over you, there is quite the windy stage to follow, followed by tourist chasing their stuff all over the beach. Its awesome. This woman of course lots her hat straight to the ocean. Russ, being a gentleman, ran into the ocean to grab this ladies hat, right as a wave came in, hit him and I watched cash and cards fall from his pockets. He didnt notice because he was fetching this ladies hat. So I ran straight to the ocean and grabbed what little cash I could, but our cards to get back on ship were long gone.
He did find his sunglasses though, so we were good there.
Luckily I retrieved enough cash to get us back to the ship.
We had a few minutes before we had to get back on, so we stopped to enjoy our last few minutes of our honeymoon by eating a delicious filled crepe and fruit smoothie.

After I finished breast feeding...jk I have no idea why my boobs are wet, we wrapped up our day with a delicious piece of pizza.
I strongly suggest going to St Maarten, and eating ribs on the beach. Your life will be better for it.