Thanksgiving Break

This year for Thanksgiving we decided to go visit Sam's sister Amy in Shelley, Idaho (near Idaho Falls) for the whole week. It was so fun because Sam's older bro Dan and wife Richelle and kids drove all the way up from Texas. We had a lot of fun being with everyone, plus it was nice to have a break from school.... the first night we were in idaho, we headed up to Rexburg to spend time with my best friend Tiffany and hubby Matt. It was SOO fun being able to hang out with them! This whole week was great!

at dinner with Tiffany and Matt:
playing frisbee golf with sam's fam:
Amy and Dan working on our 1000 piece puzzle, it took us like 3 days to finish it haha:
after Thanksgiving dinner. yummy food!
Sam playin football with the boys after dinner:
Friday we all went to Lava Hot Springs (about an hour south of Shelley); it was awesome:
Sam(the professional light installer) helped Matt put up their Christmas lights lol:hangin out before we head back home; thanks amy and matt for having us! we had a blast! :)

Christmas?

ok ok i know its a little early to be putting up the christmas background but i just couldnt resist! i thought it was just sooo cute and i didnt want any of my sisters stealing it so i had to be the first to use it haha... im sooo excited for thanksgiving next week and as you can see, im even MORE excited for christmas coming up... because christmas means that this semester is finally OVER for me and sam and we get to go home to houston!! anywho, hope you enjoy my new, very festive and very sparkly background. oh and dont miss my winter snowflakes, coming sometime this january for the winter time. :)

Happy Birthday Sam!

happy birthday to my wonderful husband! he is now 23 years old as of this past wednesday, november 5th. yay! for sam's birthday this year i decided to just keep it simple and just celebrate the day with just us. i went shopping and bought his gifts on monday and i was soo excited to give em to him that i made him open them right after we woke up on wednesday morning haha.. we were able to sleep in and have a relaxing morning because neither of us had class til 11. it was way nice. also thank you to family and friends who sent birthday wishes and gifts to him! anywho, these are pics from throughout the day.

His gifts all wrapped up and the 2 layer rainbow chip cake i made: So all sam asked for this year was a bunch of sheet music so i got him lots of diff books and sheet music of individual songs and what not. its been fun hearing him play all of it on the keyboard we have:
I had to surprise him SOMEHOW because he already knew what he was getting so i got him an xbox golf game he had been wanting hehe:
sam the birthday boy picked to have his birthday dinner at tucanos.. yum!
Such a great day! Birthdays are so fun! :)

i love halloween!

This year im really realizing how much i LOVE halloween and the fall. i love fall decorations and all the fun fall/halloween activities we can do. this year we had a fun get together at our house on halloween night with a few friends. we made caramel apples, played some fun halloween games, ate some of this awesome pumpkin roll i made (thanks michelle for the recipe!), and had a great time. these are a few pics from the event. most of us even dressed up. i love halloween! :) and now im even more excited for november because of sam's bday comin up and thanksgiving! fall is so much fun!

All ready to make caramel apples:
Snacks! along with my yummy pumpkin roll there in the middle:
Sam was an old time golfer and i was a fairy princess. sam's costume was soo awesome! and i loved my wings :)
with christa, she was a kitty:
Christa and Randall, he was a football player lol:dipping the apples:
mine and sam's, i bet you can guess which one is his haha:
playing rockband, our xbox has been broken for about 4 months and we just got it back from being fixed so it was fun to play again:
daniel and michelle:
the whole group, some of us making goofy faces lol:

Don Giovanni

So i was able to be in this year's BYU fall opera and it was soo fun! i was only in the chorus but it was great because we didnt have half the responsibility of the leads but still got the joy and fun of being in the opera! haha.... anywho, these are pics from our last performance night. Our costumes were more 18th century style rather than victorian like what it normally is for this opera... the principals were double casted and this was thursday/saturday's cast. i had some friends in the other nights i wanted pics with but didnt have my camera. i also never got a chance to get a pic with sam. oh well i guess... maybe next time i will remember that lol... anywho, here you go:

my friend Lori and i, we are doing our junior recital together in march, yay!:
this was my stage partner for all the scenes.. his name is christian.. he was so cool:
check out my sweet feather for the ballroom scene :) all of us girls had a feather of some sort:
with my friends alainna in blue (zerlina), rachel in black (donna anna), and amber who was in the chorus with me:
with alainna and rachel... so they are both wearing wigs that are totally not their hair color at all (had to be the hair color of the characters).... love these girls lol:
all of us chorus hangin out downstairs playin apples to apples during the show lol:
with my friend melissa (donna elvira)
all the principals.. don giovanni on the right, and check out the cool commendatore statue to the left.. it was so creepy when he was onstage:all of us chorus..... im in the very middle:my awesome director/professor Dr. Vincent, this man is so amazing!:

I've Been Tagged! "8 is Great"

So my sister Kristin was recently tagged on writing down some of her favorite things then tagged me to do the same thing. Anywho, I thought it would be fun to share so here you go.. enjoy! :)

8 TV shows I love to watch:
1. CSI
2. The Colbert Report (my husband likes to keep me educated on politics haha)
3. The Office
4. Burn Notice
5. Family Guy
6. Top Chef
7. Project Runway
8. Top model

8 Things that Happened to me Yesterday:
1. worked out in the morning (we actually have gym passes now, yay)
2. got my hair cut and colored darker (finally! lol)
3. went to go buy new scriptures but ended up not buying any. i didnt know scriptures were so expensive! guess i will have to wait til christmas or something.
4. went grocery shopping in under an hour and didnt spend too much money! :)
5. watched "the office" newest episode with michelle .. hilarious.
6. performed in BYU's opera Don Giovanni for our final night!
7. had to strike the stage after the performance, meaning tear everything down and put it all away.. that took forever!!
8. came home and ate ice cream while watching my husband try to figure out a rubiks cube haha

8 Favorite Places to Eat:
1. PF Changs
2. TGI Fridays
3. Gringo's
4. Pho Yen
5. Landry's
6. Macaroni Grill
7. BJ's
8. a tie between Double Dave's Pizza and Buffalo Wild Wings

8 Things I am looking forward to:
1. the end of this semester! i've never taken 17 credits before and its turning out to be pretty tough haha
2. Thanksgiving! we are going to visit sam's sis amy in idaho
3. Christmas in houston :)
4. same as kristins #4-- to see kelli's new baby right after he's born over christmas break :)
5. next summer when we will still be here in utah goin to school. never been here for the summer. i hear its pretty
6. Sam's Bday Nov. 5th so we can go out to celebrate! :)
7. Graduating next December and moving back to Houston
8. Having more time on my hands (now that the opera is over) to study and get things done!

8 Things on my wish list:
1. to go on a cruise!
2. some major shopping spree for new clothes! haha
3. be in the chorus of Houston Grand Opera
4. to be a good voice teacher someday
5. that we can be good parents when we have kids
6. that my apt. will magically clean itself lol
7. to go to the bahamas or tahiti or some place exotic with nice beaches
8. lasik eye surgery!

8 People I Tag:
1. Tiffany
2. Natalie
3. Michelle
4. Emily (savage)
5. Emily (robinson)
6. Cami
7. Kileen
8. Hollijo
(i wanna tag more but i guess i will just have to wait til someone else tags them lol)

Car....

Yay! We finally got a new car! Now we wont freeze on the motorcycle this winter haha.. Its a 2005 Acura TL. We got an awesome deal on it. I'm so excited because not only is it a LOT cheaper than the car we used to have, it still has all the same extra features on it. PLUS it will drive a lot better in the snow up here because it has front wheel drive. PLUS its waay bigger than our other car. We are prolly gonna own this car for a very long time because we love it.

New Toy

These are all pics since we bought our motorcycle back in September. Sam's friend Daniel has a motorcycle too so we like to go on sunday rides with them. these first few pics are up provo canyon. Its been fun having the bike. We recently sold our Lexus so the bike is all we have until we can find another car that is cheaper. haha... anywho, the bike we got is a new Yamaha Raider and Daniel's is a Yamaha Vstar 1100. These boys are hilarious together. they love the fact that their bikes look good together and since they both now have custom exhaust pipes, they love that the bikes SOUND good together. they are funny.

This was by the reservoir in Provo Canyon. the weather was so pretty that day!Video of the 2 bikes together. this was before sam had his new pipes on so you couldnt really hear his bike, daniel's sounds awesome tho:

Daniel's wife Michelle and I on the bikes:
We drove all the way up to Aspen Grove in the canyon (past sundance). it was so pretty up there with all the tall trees:
Cool amphitheater place we found: 2nd long cruise up near Alpine, we drove up the back side of the mountain near the point of the mountain and could see both the salt lake valley and all of the alpine, highland area. it was a fun ride:Wearing our cool helmets and jackets:Salt Lake Valley:View of Alpine/Highland:Video of the new pipes, they are so loud and sam loves it! the first day he had them, we drove to the Wilkinson center parking lot and while showing me his new pipes, he set off 2 car alarms! it was so funny! its good that they are loud tho- now we are safer on the roads because its easier for people driving to hear when we are near them.


Now we just have to find a second vehicle so we dont have to ride the bike all the time. especially since it is already getting freezing outside! its nice because we drive the bike to school and get the closest parking but now that we dont have any other vehicle, its hard to go anywhere else haha. hopefully we will find somethin soon.