Cabinet Make-Over

As I mentioned, before we drove up to Utah for Christmas we started painting our kitchen cabinets. You may remember that our kitchen used to look like this:

And after our initial paint job:

In the workshop...

And now, after our cabinet painting...


Slowly but surely, our house is coming along!

Christmas

 

 Andy had his last final on Dec. 16, and we promptly started painting our kitchen cabinets. But that is for a different post. I had to work a couple of days during the week, so on Wednesday we headed up to Utah again! Awesome. We had SO much fun over our Christmas break! We had dinner with Grandpa B, we had a couple of Dominion nights with the fam (aka Brookie & Andy, the Zo's, Meek, Bear & Bobbie), and some Canasta and Skip-Bo battles (I had terrible luck during this trip. Even Mom had a difficult time getting me a win on my card. Sad.) We went and saw the Muppet Movie, Sherlock Holmes, and Mission Impossible, and ate at Moochie's a few times. We had an outing to MAC and H&M, Mom and I went and got pedicures (thanks, Mom!), and we spent every minute possible with friends and family! We went down to St. George on New Year's Eve and hung out with Mom, Dad, and Meek. We went to Brick Oven to celebrate Dad's birthday, and spent New Year's in an intense Skip-Bo battle! Then we drove the rest of the way home on New Year's. It was such an awesome break! Thanks to everyone for making our holiday season so amazing!Here are some pics (again, I am terrible at remembering to take pictures--too busy having fun, I guess! I will try to get better at this!)

Thanksgiving

Andy and I love the holidays. Andy gets a bit of a break from school, and we get an excuse to see our families! My boss at work was nice enough to let me off of work on my birthday, so on Saturday after work, we headed up to St. George! We got there pretty late, I seem to never get off of work on time, but it was awesome to be able to get up to B-town early! We were lucky enough to be able to hit a random snowstorm on the way through Cedar City, good that the Jetta seems to handle okay in the snow, but our windshield washer fluid froze close to Beaver, so we had to pull over and try to thaw it out! The parking lot was PACKED with other people trying to do the same thing. Apparently they don't have -20 windshield washer fluid as a standard in AZ. Who knew. Anyway, we made it safe to B-town and the party began! On Monday, we celebrated my b-day by going out to lunch at Jason's Deli. We met up with Mom & Dad, Brock, Linds & the kids, Bear and Bobbie and the kids, and the Zo's. It was so much fun! I am always so happy to see people in Utah! We had Pier 49 Pizza up at my parents for dinner and played games with everyone! Awesome. On Wednesday, Andy and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary! I can't believe that it has been 7 years. It makes me feel old. We celebrated our anniversary by eating at some of our favorite SLC restaurants! We had lunch at Moochie's, dinner at Crown Burger, and, to keep up with our tradition, dessert at the Melting Pot. We have gone to the Melting Pot every year for our anniversary, and we're keeping it up! It sounds like a pretty fat anniversary, and I guess it was, but it was awesome!

We had Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Dawna's house, and it was tasty tasty tasty as usual! That family knows how to throw a party! And we are always happy to partake of all of the yummy food :) It was fun to see the whole fam!

On Friday, we went to El Matador to celebrate Evan's birthday and Andy went to the U of U football game with Tony.

I think they froze. Probably more noticeable since the U played TERRIBLY. Embarrassing, really. Oh well. On Saturday, we went to see Grandpa B and went up to Logan for some Frederico's and up to Lewiston for the grand tour. It is always so great to see Grandpa B, he so awesome. We started our voyage home after we got back from Lewiston. We always love our visits back to Utah. We are so grateful for such awesome friends and family that always make us look forward to visits!

Brookie!

This past week, Andy and I were busy! It was a great week! On Monday, after Jack's birthday party, we drove up to Las Vegas for an Emergency Medicine conference that Andy wanted to go to. We were there until Wednesday, and then we decided to drive home a day early. Brookie flew in on Thursday for a work thing, and I got to hang out with her when she wasn't in meetings! I picked her up on Thursday and we got some Cafe Rio takeout for lunch and gave her a tour of our house! Then we went shopping at World Market (I think she was a fan--who wouldn't be?) and we made some soup for dinner. Apparently we appeared to be struggling, because Andy said that we looked like the 3 Stooges trying to make dinner. Since there were only 2 of us, does that mean it looked like we were struggling as much as 3 people would be? Sounds like a lot. Anyway, the soup tasted fine, and I didn't taste any pieces of melted plastic in my soup (left a bag of shredded cheese on a hot stove--woops). I picked Brookie up after work on Friday, and we watched a movie. On Saturday after Brookie's meetings were done, we went shopping again! We checked out the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall (hooray for H&M and MAC), and then I introduced Brookie to the Container Store. That place is AMAZING. I am happy to say that Brookie enjoys it as much as I do. Some people just think I'm crazy because I get excited about organizational things.

After our shopping excursion, we got takeout from Joe's Farm Grill and finished our movie from Friday. Sunday, Brookie and I had a rousing game of Domino's (I won!) and I took her to the airport. We were so excited to have her down here to visit for a few days! Love you Brookie! Thanks for the visit! Can't wait for you to move down here (hint, hint!)

Fall Visit!

I realize that most of our posts are about people visiting, but really it is one of the only blog-worthy things that happen for us. Otherwise, it would include: Andy studies, Andy has a test, Bri works. That's what we do. But I digress.

This past weekend, Grandpa B, Linn & Evan came down to visit! Here are some of the highlights:

(Thanks, Aunt Kathy, for the wonderful hot pads! Love them!)

We had a wonderful Sunday dinner using Grandma B's china.

We had a rousing game of Skip-Bo.


We introduced the fam to Organ Stop Pizza (I think it was a big hit).

We went to Jack's dinosaur-themed birthday party! Happy birthday Jack!

Andy and Grandpa read Gus books, and we played with the kids. We are so excited that Grandpa, Evan & Linn came down to visit us! We were super excited to show Grandpa our new house and for him to try out his very own bed in our guestroom! Love you guys! Thanks for the visit!

Evan, Linn & Dawna Visit!

This past weekend, we were thrilled to have Evan, Linn, and Dawna come down to visit us! Linn bottles fruit, and she is always nice enough to share the wealth with us! What a great excuse to come down and visit us Arizonans! I guess I can call us that by this point... Anyway, they brought down some tasty peaches and pears for us, and we got to hang out with them for the weekend! Unfortunately, Andy had a final on Monday, so he wasn't able to be around very much, but we were excited for any time that we could get! They got here Friday night, and we went and got a quick dinner and headed over to Addi's and Blake's and played with the boys for a bit before they went to bed. On Saturday, Evan was nice enough to help us get a timer set up for our sprinklers! I'll admit--we are not very good at remembering to turn on our sprinklers. We water in the morning, because rumor has it that a) scorpions come out at night, and b) they like standing water, so--if we forget to water in the morning it doesn't happen. We have yet to see a scorpion around our house, and I want to keep it that way (knock on wood). So, the timer on our sprinklers will be a great addition and will make our lawn look infinitely better. It's kind of in sad shape right now. I'll blame it on the ridiculously hot weather, but I know our lack of watering is also a big contributor. So thank you Evan! While the boys were working on that, us girls went shopping at Hobby Lobby and over to a little strip mall that's close and did some perusing. After that, we all went for a swim in the pool and got some takeout, then went back to Addi's and Blake's for a movie.

We had a great dinner on Sunday, and attached our baseboards with Evan's help (thanks again, Evan, for bringing the nail gun down and for your help! So excited to have those baseboards nailed back in place!). They took off on Monday, and we were sorry to see them go! It's always so nice to have people down to visit, and we really appreciate it! Love you guys! Can't wait to see you again!

Visitors!

We had so much fun this past weekend! Our friends Alan, Whitney, and little Greyson came down to visit! They had a baby blessing in the family, and we stole them for as much time as we could while they were down here! Unfortunately, I had to work all day Friday and Andy had school, so we had to leave them to fend for themselves during the day! Luckily we had the pool to keep them occupied, and it sounds like it did its job!

We had dinner after I got off work at Joe's Farm Grill, and then had a game of Canasta. I'm sorry to say that we did not win. In fact, it wasn't even close. On Saturday, Whit and Greyson hung out with me while Alan went golfing with his brother, and then when he got back we watched the BYU football game and got takeout from Joe's BBQ. We went swimming after the game, and Greyson got pretty good at splashing! It took him a little while to warm up to the idea, but I think he really liked it once he got going!

We watched a movie and played another round of Canasta (lost again...we didn't have good luck this weekend!). We had Monte Cristo's for breakfast on Sunday (tasty!) and then we hung out after the blessing. They had a family gathering in Flagstaff on Sunday, so they took off in the afternoon. It wasn't long enough, but we were so excited for them to come down to visit and hang out with us for a few days! We are so grateful for such amazing family and friends! Come again soon!