A new addition to the family

No...I'm not pregnant, don't get any ideas. But we did add somebody to our family and his name is Oliver, or Ollie for short. He is a minature dachshund and he is adorable! I had a dachshund when I was in Junior high and sadly he died when he was only a few years old so I have been wanting another ever since. They are awesome dogs.

This was him with some of his brothers. It was love at first sight!

On the car ride home. He didn't really like the car the first time but he settled on my lap after a little while.
His first time eating in his new home! We got a little carried away with all the fun dog stuff at Pet Smart but oh well. His first night was a little rough and he whined a lot in his kennel but he has been doing a lot better today so hopefully the 2nd night is better. I just want to say thanks to my wonderful husband for taking him out every few hours during the night to do his business. He let me sleep. I just love him.

We love Oliver and he can't wait to meet all of our friends and family!
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Pioneers: a day to remember

So I just finished reading the 9th and final book of the Work and the Glory series. I think that the last couple of books in the series are my favorite. The saints finally get away from their persecutors and are leaving for the valley. They originally leave their beautiful home of Nauvoo in Feb. of 1846. They were again run out of their home by greedy, evil men. But they left their homes and in some case their families and friends and started the journey to the Salt Lake Valley. Brigham Young knew there was no way they would make it all the way to the Valley that summer/fall becuase of the terrible weather conditions for the first few weeks they had been on the trail. So Brigham Young decided to create three different stopping points or settlements along the trail for the saints. It would provide temporary housing for the winter for the saints already on the trail and it would provide a place for the saints to regain supplies next spring along the trail. Brigham Young was obviously a great leader, but his inspiration was surely from the Lord. So the Saints yet again built houses in Winter Quarters, which is now North Ohama, that they would leave in the Soring. But they did it because they had to and because it is what their prophet told them to do. They also planted some crops and fixed wagons, etc so that come Spring they would be ready to press on to the valley.
Fast forward to the Spring of 1847. The Saints have been living in Winter Quarters and Brigham Young has decided to send a Vanguard company of all men to the Valley first. This would ensure that they would get there quickly and have enough time to plant crops for the coming winter. The Vanguard company consisted of 143 men, 3 women, 2 children and 73 wagons. They left Winter Quarters on April 5, 1847. On June 1st the company arrived at Fort Laramie and here the company was joined by some of the Mormon Battalion.
When the Saints were at Winter Quarters, the U.S. was at war with Mexico and the President of the U.S. requested that the LDS church muster 500 volunteers and send them into the army and have them march to California where most of the action was taking place. This was a big request considering the saints needed all the men they could get just to get ready for the journey next spring. They would already be sending many of their men off in the Vanguard company so to send 500 more into the army was a big deal. But Brigham Young encouraged any available men to do so because the money they would make in the army would be a great blessing.
Some of the Mormon Battalion, mostly the sick, were left at Pueblo, CO, during their march and these saints wintered their. This is how some members of the Mormon Battalion met the Vanguard company in the Spring.
Erastus Snow and Orson Pratt were the first of the Vanguard company to enter the valley on July 21st, 1846. President Young entered the Valley on the 24th and thus we celebrate Pioneer day on this day.
I was so happy to end the series just a few days before Pioneer day. I have much respect for the pioneers. They endured a lot. I think this quote by Pres. Hinckley sums it up nicely.

There have been many movements of epic proportions in the history of mankind that are worthy of remembrance and which we cannot afford to forget. But the migration to this valley before the coming of the railroad is of so vast a scope, involving so many people, and entailing so much of human suffering and sacrifice, that it must ever occupy a unique place in the annals of human history. It has all of the elements of a great epic—persecution, flight into the wilderness, hope, vision, sickness, the unrelenting cruelty of the elements, deaths numbering in the thousands, and final triumph through unspeakable courage and labor. We must never forget those who have gone before. We must never take lightly the price they paid. It is a story not only for the members of the Church of which they were members; it is a story for all the world and for all generations. (President Gordon B. Hinckley, Days of '47 Pioneer Luncheon, Salt Lake City, Utah, July 24, 1995.)

Time Traveler's have wives

I really want to see this movie. I have been seeing previews of it for a while and it looks really good! I adore Rachael McAdams and I also really like Eric Bana too. It helps that they are both really good looking and great actors. It just seems like a really good storyline too...I think it was originally a book. Maybe I will go buy the book and read it first. It always seems to be better that way. I have and always will love Rachael since she did the Notebook. Its hard not to love her and her counterpart in that movie. It is a classic romance movie and will always be on my movie shelf. Maybe if I like this movie it will take the place next to the Notebook. Who know? Anyone else think this movie looks good?

I love A's

So normally I don't like to brag, but today I am going to because I am really proud! I am taking a class this summer called Mass Communication Law. It is known to be one of the hardest classes in the communication/journalism major. I got lucky and got a really good teacher. She is wonderful and you can tell that she really loves teaching. The other teachers I have heard are really bad and just give you tons of busy work and their tests are impossibly hard as well. Not to say my teacher is super easy on us, but I think she is just a better teacher and that reflects a lot on the students. So her exams are still pretty hard. There are a few multiple choice but the majority of the test is short answer and as essay portion. I did really well on the first test and got a 92. This was mainly because I did a group project on our first unit of info so my group and I knew the info like the back of our hand. But still I was excited i did so well on the first test. Plus we got an A on our group project which was worth 300 points (a substantial part of our grade and the equivalent to 3 tests!). So I took the second test a couple weeks ago and just got my grade back yesterday. I was not confident at all about this test and seriously thought I failed it. So imagine my surprise when I recieve it back with a 82 in bright red ink! Plus it was on a curve so it was a 82 out of 86. So another A! I wanted to cry I was so happy. Yay!! So I really don't like tooting my own horn but I just could not help it because I am so excited to be getting an A in the one of the hardest classes of my college life. And I am so happy also to know that I have less than 3 weeks until its all over. (I will be taking two online classes in the fall but I really don't count those!) So less than 3 weeks and I will be pretty much be a college grad. I won't actually walk the stage until next May but its only paper.

This weekend...

Long post ahead!

Chad and I had a fun-filled weekend...it was truly a wonderful summer weekend! On Friday we went to see the long-awaited 6th Harry Potter movie and it was awesome! If you haven't read the Harry Potter books you really need to. They are genius and the movies are certainly right behind the books. I personally felt this movie was the best out of all of them. Of course there were parts that I didn't care for and important parts I wished were in the movie, but overall it was really good and funny. I definitely laughed more in this one than I did in any of the others.

After the movie:


Pre-movie we went to Panda Express which is becoming one of my favorite places to eat out. Most of you know that I don't really care for Chinese food but I do like Panda Express. And I know that most of you are thinking 'but Panda Express isn't real Chinese Food' and I think that is exactly why I like it. So we ate there before the movie and did a little window shopping at the Gateway.


We also got new tires that day for our Jeep. I've had the Jeep for 4 or 5 years now (well I drove it when we first got it and then it was in Cali with my dad for the last couple years). Anyways it was in desperate need of new tires and we wanted to get them before we left for California.


Saturday morning we got up somewhat early and went to the Farmers Market. It was huge and there were so many people there but I loved it. I probably could have stayed for hours if it wasn't so hot. But Chad and I had lots of fun and we bought some yummy raspberries for much cheaper than the store.

And I decided to make a yummy lemon-merengue raspberry cake.
Pre-cake:
Finished product:

Here is the recipe if anyone is interested, it was really good!

Ingredients:

• Cooking Spray
• Flour for dusting
• 1 (1/2 pint) raspberries
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Cake:

• 2 1/3 cups cake flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup lowfat buttermilk
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 large eggs
• 1 large egg white
• 1 1/4 cups sugar

Frosting:

• 3/4 cups sugar
• 2 large egg whites
• 3 tablespoons water
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/8 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

Click here to see how it's made.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Spray 2 (8-inch) round cake pans with cooking spray. Dust lightly with flour and shake out the excess.

Reserve half of the raspberries, and combine the other half with 1 tablespoon sugar and crush with a fork. Set aside.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl, stir with a fork to evenly combine the ingredients. In another bowl, whisk the buttermilk, oil, lemon zest, and lemon juice.

Whisk together eggs, egg whites and sugar in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until it holds ribbons, about 2 minutes. Add the flour mixture in 3 parts, alternating with the buttermilk mixture in 2 parts, beginning and ending with the flour. Stir together by hand until evenly combined and no lumps remain.

Pour the batter evenly into the pans. Bake in the center of the oven until a cake tester comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Cool on a baking rack for 10 minutes, then turn the cakes out onto a baking rack to cool completely.

Frosting: Bring a few inches of water to a boil in a saucepan that can hold an electric mixer bowl above the water. Whisk the sugar, egg whites, water, cream of tartar, and salt in the bowl by hand. Set the bowl above the boiling water and beat with an electric hand mixer at medium-high speed until stiff peaks form, about 7 minutes. Remove from the heat; beat in the lemon zest and vanilla.

To assemble the cake: Place 1 layer on a flat serving or cake plate, top side down, and spread with crushed raspberries. Top with 3/4 cup frosting, spreading gently on top of the raspberries. Place the second cake layer on top, top side up, and frost the top and sides. Decorate with the reserved raspberries.

Then later that night Chad and I went to a Fray concert in USANA amphitheater with my sister Nichole and her husband Chase.

Pre-concert getting ready to leave:

Chad being silly... he does this a lot.

So we headed to the concert about 5 and got to the amphitheater about 5:30. It was really hot for about the first hour and we bought $5 smoothies...of course they are ridiculously overpriced but they were pretty good. Some clouds rolled in after about an hour and made in considerably cooler after that. So we hung out on the grass for a couple hours before any music even started. We had fun just hanging out with Nichole and Chase.

This was our view from our seats. We had a pretty good view. There were a lot of people there!

Jack's Mannequin opened for the Fray and they were awesome! I hadn't listened to a lot of their music but now I really want to buy their CD's because they were so good live.
Here's the lead singer at the piano. He had so much energy!

Nichole got up and danced with some of the people around us!

This is us right before the Fray came on. We were a little worried that it might get rained out because it started getting a little stormy right when the Fray came on but it didn't and we were so happy!

Here are some pics of the Fray! They aren't the best pics but thats ok.



And here are the Fray playing "Heartless" by Kayne West. They sang a different version that was way better!

This was the second Fray concert we went to. We saw them almost exactly two years ago at the shoreline ampitheater in Mountain View, CA when Chad and I were still dating.



I know we look a little different! It has been two years since this pic was taken.


It was fun to keep the tradition going and I am sure we will see them again sometime because they are one of our favorite bands!

Recent Happenings

So I know its been two weeks now since the 4th and I still haven't blogged about it so I thought I should really get on that. Chad had to work all day on the 4th which was a bummer so I went up to my sisters and then we went to a BBQ with her husband Chase and my neice Brielle. The BBQ was at Chase's brothers house in Provo. We had a lot of fun. I really wish I would have gotten picture but my camera was dead so I might get some from my sister later and post them. Then I drove back home and Chad got off work at 9 so we headed over to Sugarhouse Park to watch their fireworks show. We parked a ways away and just walked so we wouldn't have to wait hours to get out after it was over. There were so many people there.... thousands! It was crazy. But Sugarhouse park is really nice so I am not surprised that there were that many people. The picture below show how many people there were in just a small portion of the park. You could probably multiply that by a lot and get the number of people. Sorry the picture is kinda bad but you can click on it to see better.

A picture of us. I just think this picture is funny because of the glow in the dark things in the background. Purely coincidence.

I made these the other day because I was just in the mood for chocolate covered strawberry's. They turned out good and are so easy. I have made them before but they always seemed complicated until now.
Tuesday Nichole, Brielle and I drove up to Clearfield to visit my grandma. We both had the day off and hadn't seen my grandma in while so we went. It was a really nice visit and my grandma made us lunch. I of course didn't take very many pictures of all of us but I did get a cute picture of Brielle. I guess when there are cute babies around you forget to tak pictures of everyone else!

Thats all for now from us! We are slowly starting to get ready to move. We are getting excited and sad in ways. I am excited to have a change and to be in California close to our families. I am also sad to be leaving beautiful Utah and all of our wonderful family and friends here. We leave on the 7th of August pretty early so it really is getting close. I just thought I would mention this in case someone didn't know we were moving and wanted to get together before we do!

Out with the old, in with the new!

So I guess you really couldn't consider these couches old because we have only had them for a year. But the couch was starting to get a little wear and tear (they must have been cheap when we bought them) and so we really wanted to get rid of them while we could. So we put em up on craigslist and sold them the next day. We got a pretty good amount out of them and only had to out minimal money down on the new couches. So all and all it was really great. So here are the old ones:

And here are the new ones! This is only the love seat, the couch we had to get a minor repair on so I couldn't get a picture of it yet, but just imagine it looks exactly like the love seat except a little bigger! They aren't leather altough they kinda look like it. But we love them! They are so much more confotable and bigger than the others.

And here is an art project I did the other day. I have a pretty big jewelry collection, its one of my addictions and you will find jewelry all around the house. So I decided to make my own jewelry holder of sorts. I have seen them before and decided to just make my own. It wasn't very hard. The board is just a corkboard. So here it is done:

And here it is with my jewelry. Works really well and I actually have somewhere to put it all now!

Music of my past....

Prior to getting married I was pretty much obsessed with music. It was a huge part of my life and took up a lot of my spare time. This was partly just to being born with a musci gene I think (one for liking music not being good at playing an instument or singing it- I wish). But mostly I think my love for music spawned from my family and friends. My parents have always loved music and I grew up listening to everything and anything it seemed. From my dad I inherited a love for oldies and country old-timers. Such as: Sammy Kershaw, Rolling Stones, Van Morrisson, etc. From my mom I inherited a love for all music I guess. My mom loves music as much as I do. Maybe not always the same types, but a lot of the time we share similar tastes. For example: Michael Buble, Il Divo, Enya, etc. My siblings also got a love for music like I did. My sister was always a big influence on me in the music department. If she recommended a band it must be good. (At least that's what I thought-most of the time it was true). She showed me bands like Taking Back Sunday, The Used, and others than I can't think of right now. And lastly, my brother and I probably were the most into music out of our family. We have very much the same music taste maybe minus his like of rap. While I like some songs I am not a fan of most. So anywho through our high school Cody and I love many many bands. Our favorite included: Brand New, Say Anything, Dashboard Confessional, Snow Patrol, Northstar and oh too many more I can't even remember.

Okay so I have rambled a lot. So my point here was once I got married I kind of lost touch with the music world for a while. It had nothing to do with Chad (He loves music too). But I guess I just got busy. I didn't make the time I used to to research new bands and download their songs. I might still pull out one of my old CD's or my IPod once and a while and reminise with my old music but I was nothing like I was before. I just didn't care as much, or have time to care. I noticed a similar trend with my sister when she got married, I dunno anyone else have this happen? So I mostly listened to the radio and once and a while I bought a new CD but my old CD's were mostly pushed into a drawer somewhere. The other day my husband was in a new Cd to listen to kind of mood and pulled out a bunch of my old mix CD's. So i guess this is where this blog/rant came from. I also pulled out some of my old CD's and have been listening to them. I know remember why I liked them so much. I remember which CD's I loved the most and why I could listen to them for days on end on repeat and not get tired of them.

So here are a few recommendations from my library of music if anyone is interested. Don't feel bad if your not, I probably wouldn't be interested in a lot of your music either! (kidding, I really do like most music)

Damien Rice- It is slow Yoga type music. Good for relaxing in the bath. Warning- some songs do contain swearing but most good ones are clean.

Brand New- Definitely punk/yelling music at times. But my brother and I have been hooked from thier first CD. I think what I am most attracted to is their lyrics. They are just awesomly weird lyrics at time and very catchy. My favorite CD of theirs is Deja Entendu. Get it. Listen to it.


Bloc Party- So I am not sure what to label this music as. It is unique. The songs are very catchy and have awesome beats. It is more of a dancing music type CD. Not slow at all. Listen to Banquet. That is one of their more popular songs.

Okay so that enough for now. Maybe when I do some more exploring into my CD's I will post some more recommendations.

Girls Night In

So about a week ago I spent the night with my sister and niece. We cooked dinner together and I of course played with my beautiful niece and she showed me her new found talent: crawling! Then we put Brielle to bed and Nichole and I watched Bride Wars. It was a great chick flick movie to watch together. Really funny! So we had a really fun time hanging out together. Here are some pics of our fun night.