New hobby sprung from an old hobby

It's been a long time since I posted anything. Sorry! I haven't been taking any pictures because my camera is stupid! Most of the pictures come out blurry or have terrible flash lighting. Someday when I get a nice new one I will take lots of pictures and post every week! I feel strongly about documenting and so I will start saving money for a new camera!

One thing I'll share with you that I've been up to lately is making jewelry. Back in junior high and a little in high school I made necklaces and bracelets. I proudly strutted my craftsmanship around school always showing off the bundle of choker length necklaces around my neck! It was very trendy to wear lots at a time (and I was totally hip!) These necklaces and bracelets were strictly small beads. I accumulated hundreds of these small beads and carried them with me throughout the years. They've been tucked away for so long because that cool fad that I once owned is totally out now! It's all about bulk, big and bulky. Which is cool actually, I love it! So a couple months ago I pulled out the old bead organizer storage dilly and dived back into my past. I discussed the makings of with fellow beaders and began incorporating some of the little stuff with the big stuff. I started adding chains to the mix and even feathers! I have just indulged and it's been soooo much fun! Of coarse some of the stuff I've made I really like and others I brake down and start over with. It's teaching me patience for one thing. It's hard not to spend all your money on beads too because shoot they can be expensive! Now all I have to do is be able to part with some of it and put it up for sale. So, I thought it would be a good idea to put up some pictures and show ya'll! Enjoy!

first off, feather earrings...that's right!




I have lots more but like I said, my camera is crap so I will put up more pictures at another time

The End to Two Thousand Ten

This is long overdue...
First off, after that sick discovery in our storage closet, John and I made an effort to clean out the closet and organize it really really well. That Tupperware is a dream. Although the best part was after everything was organized and put away, John looked down and saw some stuff on the ground. That stuff was ornaments! That's right, the angels didn't get thrown away like I thought. They must have fallen out of the box with the hole in it and I didn't notice at the time cause it was kinda dark out. Anyway, I jumped for joy! Also, my wonderful mom sent us new stockings of the same kind we lost and so, everything worked out! It's a Christmas miracle! Here's our cute tree and wreath. (Thanks to my brother Brett and his wife KT. Its still glowing you guys!)


The week of Christmas was a VERY stressful one. It started with a work crisis that lasted almost 2 days. Thankfully nothing tragic happened. Well on Tuesday, the 21st was mine and John's 3rd anniversary... and I had to work because of the crisis. So, we decided to celebrate it the next Tuesday... which I'll get to in a bit. The rest of the week was just busy busy busy. Christmas day was nice. I got John a waffle maker, he's been wanting one bad and so we had waffles. We went to his parents house and had waffles for breakfast! After chillin at the in-laws for a while, we met up with my brother Aaron and his wife and kids. We went to a movie and that was about it. We then went back to the in-laws for dinner and then went home. It was low key and way nice to relax.

So then Tuesday came around and we decided to celebrate our anniversary. We basically got errands done in the morning and afternoon then headed up to Salt Lake to see the Temple Square lights. John had never done that before and it had been about 8 years for me so we thought it would be nice and hey, free! After the lights we went out to eat at a place called Buca di Peppo. It's Italian and really good. However the service was not that great! Aren't my ear muffs cute!! (Thanks again Brett!)

As for the rest of the week we just played it low key as well. We stayed in for New Years Eve and Day and ate waffles and watched TV and played Tetris. Lots and lots of waffles and lots and lots of tetris... and its still going on...

On a side note, I found this picture of John and I on my Sister In-Law's blog and thought I'd share it. It's from my sister Cody's wedding open house thing so John and I were very serious at this time but not quite engaged yet. I wanted to write more about our story and everything but I'm tired so I'll save it for another time. Look how tan I am and how young John looks!

a sick story that just had to make the blog...

On Sunday I finally got out the Christmas decorations. It had been 2 years instead of just 1. I didn't decorate last year because I was really afraid our cats would destroy everything and we went out of town anyway.

All the decor is in our storage shed outside. It's a pretty terrible storage closet area. Every time I get anything out of there its either got bugs or cobwebs. Yuck! Well I found the two cardboard boxes of stuff and when I pulled out the smaller one, a portion of the bottom was missing. It was wet and probably just withered away. Thankfully most of my more special ornaments were wrapped in bubble wrap so the wet destruction didn't get all the way through. Most were saved. However, some things got ruined.

The biggest let down were our beautiful stockings. We got them as a wedding present and I only got to use them once. They were pure white and soft and furry. So pretty. Well, the wet bag I wrapped those in had a big hole in it too. In fact it looked like there were shavings of the plastic bag and when I looked closer....there was something else. Brace yourself.... DEAD MICE!!! That's right, about 4 or 5 dead baby mice. All curled up together, probably trying to keep warm and well, they didn't. I about freaked out, I think you can imagine. I yell for John because I could not look at it. I was actually surprised at how revolted I felt. Anyhow, he carefully picked up the bag so as not to spill the mice on our floor and placed it in the garbage. Then immediately took it to the dumpster.

A few minutes went by and I realize some of our most fragile ornaments must have been wrapped in those stockings. Ya know, to keep them from breaking. We had some little personalized stain glass angels that someone awesome gave us that never showed up. My guess is they were in the stockings, lost forever. It's really sad. I'm a little heart broken over it. Not only did we lose such beautiful stockings, but also some of the nicest ornaments we own. Ugh. It goes without saying that when we take down the decorations this year, they are going in a plastic Rubbermaid Tupperware thing. No more cardboard boxes. Ick!

Merry Christmas!

It seems only fair...

So I always post about the Twilight movies... but I think Harry Potter deserves recognition a lot more! How amazing is the world of Harry Potter? I haven't been to the new town at Disneyworld but I'm hoping to get there by next summer...we'll see. But seriously people, how much do you love Harry Potter?? I have read all 7 books twice each and I will read them again and again because they are brilliant! J.K. Rowling is a genious!

On November 13th I began the marathon... one movie a day for a week. I watched all 6 movies (in order of coarse) at home and then I went opening day to see the latest one, The Deathly Hallows. I was really impressed. It followed the book so closely. I know people are bickering about the weird nakedy kiss scene between an odd image of Harry and Hermione. At first I was a little shocked but then I thought about it for a few days and decided it was exactly what I would expect a Horcrux to do.... Make me feel uncomfortable. It was icky and it felt wrong and yeah it was a little disturbing. That's evil for ya.

Anyway, I told John before we saw it that I thought it would end at Bill and Fleur's and sure enough, I was right! Just had to brag about that for a second.

I'm also happy that they did make it into 2 movies. It will be a sad feeling after it's all over. I'm glad I can still be this excited about it for another 7 months.

Shout out to my awesome brother

For no particular reason at all I thought I would dedicate a post to my rad cool brother, Brett. Brett is, who I often tell people, a film guy. (Not to mention a million other cool things he is) When he lived in Utah a few years ago he made and worked on some movies that I was privileged to be in! Of coarse I was usually a background person. Never had any lines. But I'm not complaining, I had a blast just being there!

So, in this one, it is a music video about a girl and a computer. I'm just in the beginning of this briefly at about 5 seconds in..



This one comes from the movie, Pride and Prejudice an LDS comedy. I found this clip YouTube. It is the first like 8 minutes of the movie which is cool because I'm only in the beginning! Check me out at about 3 minutes 30 seconds. I'm sitting down and have a black shirt on.


One more little appearance was in his film, Bonjour Danny Bonjour. You can watch the whole thing on IMDB by clicking http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi3769041433/>
I'm a store clerk!

Yep, Brett is a pretty awesome guy! Thanks for letting me participate in the fun! I'm excited to see him and other family at Thanksgiving! And I'm pretty excited to meet my newest nephew, thanks again Brett! I love you!

Halloween

At work this year I painted my pumpkin as SPIDERMAN. It took me seriously 6 hours to paint...if not longer. But it was worth it because I won 2nd place in the competition at work giving me a gift card to the mall! Sweet! Here is my awesome pumpkin:



I try to think of costume ideas in advance so I'm not left with some really lame last minute costume. The last two years I've worn a skirt and I'm not someone who often wears skirts outside of church. So this year I did not want to wear a skirt. I wanted to wear jeans. I made a list of ideas and John picked....Twilight. Ha Ha Ha I was surprised he wanted to go as Edward but I was all for going as Bella.

I wore jeans, my converse shoes, a TEAM EDWARD shirt that I got at Hot Topic for $10 and I had a girl from work curl my hair. Well my hair was a bit more complicated than that. I had her wrap it in rods and I sat under the dryer for about 35 minutes. Afterwards my hair was so huge and curly so I put on a headband to get it to calm down a bit. Anyway, I had to work in the morning and other then it being a slow day of work, we had fun. Here's me and my girls:


After work I zoomed home and helped John with his hair and he and I went out to meet up with some friends at Tucanos. We were looking pretty awesome. So were our friends. Here we are:




Fun Stuff!!!

Here's some more pics...

SAINT LOUIS!!!!

Good day everyone. This is a post I'm sure most of you are looking forward to. It's long and detailed and awesome. So, here we go....

John and I spent last week in his home town, St. Louis, Missouri. This was my first time to the fabulous city and we had one incredible trip. We arrived Tuesday the 21st at about 1:30. We got a sweet rental car, the new Kia Soul. (the cars with the hampsters in the commercials) We discovered surprising fondness of our transport vehicle.

We arrived at Robert Knold's house in South City. This guy is super cool and a doctor. He and John grew up together and they reminisced about old times. It was fun to hear about John as a kid. The three of us took his dog for a walk in the 90+ humid heat.. I was not enjoying St. Louis at this time. Except the scenery was quite beautiful, very very green and lots of tall trees. After coming home we got dressed and ready for Mat's rehearsal dinner. I got to meet more old friends of John and his family. As is tradition in St. Louis, our dinner consisted of toasted ravioli. In other words, deep fried ravioli. (If you didn't know St. Louis was known for deep frying just about everything...you will once you're done reading this!)

Wednesday we got up and I had breakfast at IHop. John and his family were meeting up for lunch at a place called Sesame, which is Chinese food. NOT my favorite. So, I ate at IHop. I ordered my favorite item, Cheesecake Pancakes with eggs sausage and hash browns. Now, I've gotten this dish a lot here in Utah because its great but in St. Louis it was even more amazing. I started learning that food in St. Louis comes bigger and better. Those pancakes had so much cheesecake filling that I could not finish it for it was too sweet. Which is ODD for me because I love sweets and I have never not been able to finish it before. Anyhow, we arrive at Sesame and just enjoyed some Lewis family time...which naturally takes place around food. After that we went back to the house and got ready for the wedding. John's one and only younger sibling was about to be married. Thus the main reason for taking this trip to St. Louis. We had a wonderful time. The wedding was very Mat and Sarah. The ceremony was Buddhist. The cake was decorated with henna stencil (that Sarah's mom did, she's a rockstar). The food was every type of dish and many, if not all, home made. They also had a Caricaturist (and I totally got her to draw John and I on a sailboat - yeah buddy). There was music and dancing and drinking and laughing and happiness everywhere!


Thursday we got up and went to the temple. John's parents kindly joined us and drove us. We had a remarkable time. Afterwords, we went to the classic, Steak and Shake. This is mainly your ultimate burger joint. You got great burgers, fries, and not to mention SHAKES!! I wish we had one here. Then we cruised on down to a mall where I got some cute headbands (because John wants me to wear cute headbands) and a new skirt which ended up cheaper then what was on the tag. Gotta love that! John's sisters, MaryAnn and Laurene would love to tell you about the cool balsamic vinegar store they found and sampled.. perhaps on their blogs. After the mall John got some friends together and played basketball at his old church. I took a tour around the church, hardly anything was locked and I drew some super hero emblems on a chalk board. Fascinating.


Friday we again got together with the family for more food and fun. We went to the City Diner. Yep, it's just called the City Diner. It's unbelievable. That food was superb! Really! After stuffing ourselves for like the 10th time John and I, along with his brother Todd, took our next adventure to the well known St. Louis Gateway Arch. It's an incredible monument and if I remember correctly, it's the tallest one in all 50 States! After lots of walking and waiting and site seeing we then headed for the great Fitz's. (But we quickly dropped by the Cardinal stadium) Matt was working the dairy bar at Fitz's that night. Yeah, dairy bar, how awesome is that? Why don't we have a place like that in Utah? We don't care about alcohol, just ice cream! Anyhow, again here was some traditional deep fried foods. Toasted ravioli and pickle chips. I think it's funny how they give the food more appealing names when really all it is is breaded and DEEP FRIED!!! Of coarse, it makes anything good. Oh boy does it ever!



Saturday was the most eventful day. We got up with an alarm for the first time on this trip and headed out for the St. Louis Zoo. Which is FREE by the way. How wicked cool is that? We saw all sorts of amazing things. The penguin exhibit is so close you might be scared a penguin will walk or swim up and bite you. Another cool part of the zoo was the butterfly dome. It's just a room filled with hundreds of butterflies. I felt like I was in some Disney cartoon fantasy. After seeing a bunch of cool stuff at the zoo we went to Steak and Shake again because it's fabulous and then we headed out for 6 Flags!!! St. Louis Six Flags has got it goin on! It made me hate Lagoon. (Utah's amusement park) These rides were longer, faster, higher, and more intense. I was actually scared to go on some. I think the Mr. Freeze ride was my favorite. It was so insane! I also went on Superman...sigh. After going wild on a bunch of rides we went to a famous little ice cream hot spot called Ted Drew's. (oh yeah we went here the night of the wedding too) It's a pretty cool place but I don't know if it was anything amazing. Hopefully no one was hurt by reading that.


Sunday we finally relaxed a bit. We sorta slept through church... it's optional when you're on vacation right? ...So we went out to eat, ha what a surprise! Again at the City Diner. This time I had the french toast. I mean the DEEP FRIED french toast. It was probably the most delicious french toast in the world. Then we went to this Elk Park where you can just drive through these hills in a preservation and behold the majestic animals. I forgot my camera so I only have cell phone camera shots. Then we went home and did about nothing for 4 hours. Which was great because by this time I think all the eating out had gotten to me because my stomach was hurting! We later went out to eat (i know what you're thinking) at this Irish bar type place. It was not the most wonderful atmosphere but we were with good company and I had some salad which made me feel amazing.



Monday we took it pretty easy too. We went to the Science Center, also free, with some friends and we got to look and mess around with a bunch of neato stuff. Later that night we went to Sam's Steakhouse. This is a place very fond to John because he worked there for many years and just loved everyone there. A few of the old gang was still there which was great because they didn't charge us nearly what we were supposed to pay. Plate's start at over $30.00 there. John must be pretty awesome for them to hook us up huh?


Then Tuesday, today the 28th we went out to eat breakfast at a place called Bill's Pancake House. John and I each had dessert waffles. They were great! As most places there tend to have delicious food! Then we waited around for our flight and yadda yadda trip was over.

This trip was just fantastic. My description only covers the top layer of everything we did and how great it was. I loved getting out of Utah for a while. Although I will say that one thing I really love about Utah is that every building is smoke free! I couldn't believe how restaurants there separate a smoking section and a non-smoking section by only half a wall. Gross! And sure the humidity was awful but that really only lasted the first 3 or 4 days. Then it cooled off and was beautiful weather the rest of our trip. And I gotta say, John has great friends. His friend Robert that we stayed with and his wife Katie are probably some of the nicest and coolest people ever! A lot of his friends have added me on Facebook even! People there are so friendly and welcoming and comfortable. St. Louis has so many cool things to do and see and eat! Who knows if we'll end up there. I think I might be able to handle it for a couple years anyway.

Hope you enjoyed this! I did!