Showers and Sundance

Yesterday was a really good day for me. I had the opportunity to throw one of my best friends a baby shower. I have known Lauren since Freshman year of college, but it seems like a lot longer. She is one of the nicest most giving people I've ever met. She is going to have a little baby boy named Holden Mckay Farrer. She's due Feburary 15, but we all hope he comes a little sooner than that. I know I can't wait to see him.

Lauren and I on her wedding day. I was lucky enough to be her maid of honor.

All of us girls at the shower.

Then later that night a bunch of us went up to the Sundance Film Festival. We had tickets to what we thought was going to be 3 short documentaries... boy we were wrong. The "movie" started, if you could even call it a movie, and we were in for a bizarre surprise. The screen started flashing different images with strange dialog and sounds playing with it. Dustin and I kept looking at each other trying to figure out what we were watching. After 23 minutes of craziness the second documentary started. This one actually was a documentary. It was about bees. Yes I know, doesn't sound very exciting, but after what we had just experienced at least we could follow and understand this. Then the last "movie" started. There was a white box on the screen and it faded in and out. This is ALL IT DID! This one was supposed to be 44 minutes. Dustin and I just started laughing. Many people in the audience began walking out. We couldn't believe that someone made this, thought it was movie, and thought that people would acutally enjoy watching it. We left after about 15 minutes of it. We then went and got hot chocolate, walked around town, and tried to see some celebrities... with no luck. All and all it was really fun, but one of the strangest experiences.

Dustin and I in front of movie posters... all of which I'm sure would have been better than the "movie" we saw.

Linda and I after getting hot chocolate.


Dustin with a bear.

There's No Place Like Home For the Holidays...

And we were lucky enough to spend the Holidays with both of our families. My job was nice enough to let me off for two weeks so Dustin and I got to escape the cold and see our families! We spent the first week in Bakersfield. We had a blast shopping in LA, having dinner with family, making cookies for Santa, watching Chloe dance, watching the kids open up there presents, watching movies, and just spending time with Dustin's family. It was so great.

Playing Candy Land with Tanner and Chloe... aka spiderman and the princess.


She wouldn't smile because Dustin was taking the picture. She kept us laughing the entire time!

Then we spent the next week in Mesa. There we enjoyed warm weather (like 70 degrees), watching more movies (Marley and Me is amazing by the way. Highly recommend it!), shopping (mostly Rachel), going to the HUGE PGA Tour Store, golfing (Dustin), eating at Tia Rosas (my favorite restaurant EVER!), and again just being with family. We could not be more thankful for both of our families. They are so amazing and we had a blast with everyone. We wish we could see them more often.

Temple Lights!I took my mom to eat Sushi for her first time and it was seriously the BEST sushi I've ever had!


Dinner at Tia Rosas. I miss the fish and shrimp tacos already :(

PS My new years resolution is to take more pictures while we're with family. As you can see I'm not very good at having my camera on me and then using it. Hopefully I'll get better at that soon.

The Christmas Spirit

So my ring had been gone for a really long time (a month and a half, but it felt like FOREVER) and I was kind of getting antsy to get it back, I'm sure the guy at the ring store was sick of hearing from me. Well while Dustin and I were out running errands today I decided to stop by the jewelers to see if it was in yet. And to my surprise IT WAS! I was so relieved and excited. (Side note: when I had dropped it off they asked me if I wanted my ring to be re-dipped for an additional cost, but we had decided against it) So when he gave me my ring he said they had placed the diamond back in, cleaned it, and re-dipped it. When I went to get my wallet out to pay for it the guy said not to worry about it because it had taken so long for me to get my ring back and that they felt terrible about it. I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT! What an amazing surprise. Not only did I not have to pay to get it fixed, but I got it re-dipped too for free. It looks brand new just like the day Dustin gave it to me and I can't stop looking at it like back then too. I am so so so happy to have it back. I feel complete again.

Then tonight one of Dustin's friends invited us to their Christmas party. It was a lot of fun. We had dinner and then went on a hay ride and caroling. It was so much fun and really made it feel like Christmas time... until we came to one house, starting singing, a woman came to the door listened for 2 seconds and then slammed the door! HOW RUDE! I couldn't believe it. Such a Scrooge! However, the really nice elderly couples we sang to made it better again. I love Christmas time and cannot wait til we get to go to Bakersfield and Mesa to spend time with our families.

Us bundled up while caroling

So Thankful

Thanksgiving didn't used to be one of my favorite holidays until I went away to school. Any reason to see my family became a favorite holiday to me. Last year Dustin and I weren't able to go anywhere for Thanksgiving because of work so my family was able to come up here. We were in the same situation this year as well. Since Dustin works for a cell phone company Black Friday is of course a huge day and he couldn't get it off. My family was trying to decide if they would be able to make it up this year. I was getting so worried they wouldn't be able to come up. The day before Thanksgiving I got one of the best texts EVER! It came at 5 AM from my mom saying "we're coming!!!" My mom decided Wed morning at 5:00 that they were going to come. She woke everyone up, had them pack their own stuff and were on the road. For anyone that knows my mom this is NOTHING like her. She is always so organized, especially when traveling. My mom usually has the car packed the day before all ready to go. I was so thankful they were coming. It was a great Thanksgiving. I got to help my mom make the entire meal... which was amazing. My mom is a really good cook. It was so nice to have my family here. They all stayed in our apartment. It was a tight squeeze, but so much fun. We took some pictures while they were here... however they are missing my brother Brice and Dustin :(





I am so thankful for such a great family and husband. I'm sad we couldn't share it with Dustin's family too, but we are excited to see them at Christmas.

Game Time!

I love basketball, especially when it involves the Phoenix Suns! So when I found out that the Suns were coming to Utah to play the Jazz I HAD to go and cheer for them. Our friends Bryant and Mary Angelos bought tickets with us and last night we went to the game. I was so excited and decked myself out in orange and brought a suns bag my good friend Lauren made for me. I have MAJOR pride in my suns. The game was so fun and I loved that I was in the same place as my Suns. Sadly though, my boys lost :( Dustin was kind enough to keep me calm while everyone else was going crazy for the Jazz, I didn't appreciate that much to say the least (Like I said, major pride) But I still LOVE them and know they are the BEST! Hopefully Dustin and I will be able to go to a Suns game while we are in AZ for Christmas so everyone will be going crazy for the SUNS with me!


Dustin and I at the game

Our friends Mary and Bryant

My boys doing their thing

My sweet bag Lauren made me. Thanks Lauren this came in handy :)

My nightmare!!!

This last Saturday I had one of the WORST things happen!!! (Maybe a slight exaggeration, but at the time it sure felt like it) So Saturday morning I woke up and was getting ready for the gym while Dustin got ready for work. I went to put on my wedding ring (I don't sleep in it because it's said it gets bumped and can move the diamonds in your ring and cause them to fall out) and I dropped it on my tile floor in the bathroom. So I bent down to pick it up, no big deal right? WRONG!!! When I looked at my ring I saw that one the diamonds in my band was missing! I couldn't believe it. I have always tried to do everything possible to protect my ring... not sleep in it, not put it in water, not wear it while I clean, EVERYTHING! I said a choice word and Dustin came in and asked what happened. I was so afraid to tell him, but I didn't know what to do. So I told him and we both dropped to our knees and started searching for a little while. For those of you that haven't seen our bathroom, that is where our washer and dryer are. This made me very scared that it flew under there where I would have a very difficult time reaching. Dustin had to leave for work and once he did I lost it. I started balling and didn't know what to do. So I prayed and prayed and prayed!!! Then I called my mom and tried, through hysterical sobs, to tell her what happened. She tried to calm me down, but it wasn't working so well. I continued to look with no success. So I called Dustin and begged him to come home and help me, which he did. Then, after over an hour of searching, by some kind of miracle I looked where I had looked many times before and there was the diamond. I cannot tell you how relieved I felt!!! I could not have handled looking at my ring with a diamond missing (we could not afford to replace it being poor college students) I was so so so thankful my prayer was answered!

Now I am without my ring while it is being sent out to have the diamond set back in place. I am very sad to not have it, but so glad the diamond was not lost! Now Dustin wants to get me just a band to wear during the day and just use my actual ring for going out, church, and special occasions. While I am sad to not be able to wear it all the time, I guess it's worth having nothing happen to it ever again!

Halloween Fun

My good friend Aly and her husband were having a costume party for Halloween that we were really excited about. However, I wasn't really excited about coming up with costumes for Dustin and me. I'm not really one to spend a lot of money on Halloween costumes, which made it even harder to come up with costumes for us... especially since I wanted us to have cute matching outfitts. So after deciding there's nothing wrong with a little contraversy this is what we came up with....
I know our costumes needs a little explaining, as we found out last night. NO DUSTIN IS NOT AN EVIL BUNNY. I clearly am the devil and Dustin is an evil democrat politician (the ears and the nose are a donkey) and our saying was: everyone knows democrats sleep with the devil. I have a feeling politics are going to have a big influence on costumes this year. I have to say this was our final product because this is how Dustin started out...


I told Dustin he looked a little too creepy and not in a good way. So we decided against the face paint.


This is the cake I made for the party. Didn't turn out quite how I wanted it to look, but hopefully you get what it is.


So I had to take a picute of these because I thought they were amazing! These fingers are SUGAR COOKIES! I have to admit I tried to eat one and I kept freaking myself out because of how much they really looked like fingers.

Me and Aly aka Sarah Palin

Thank you Aly and Spencer for throwing a great party. We had a really good time!