Thanksgiving

Well, I meant to post about this like a million years ago but I kept getting an error about my photo quota being reached. I'm pretty sure that's untrue but now we're back so all is well. I was determined to get this up before it was actually Christmas. Anyway, I hope everyone had a delicious Thanksgiving! We went to Utah to Bryan's mom's house and had a great long weekend spent with family.

Here is Ella being a beautiful princess while we talk and wait for the food to finish cooking. In addition to the Parks, Bryan's Grandpa Vern and his wife Karen came.

A while back I teasingly said to Bryan, "You should learn how to do more manly things-- like carve a turkey." Well, that challenge was accepted and Bryan carved our turkey this year!

As you can see, he did a really amazing job. I was so proud of him!

We ate very well!

I made pies again this year. I made apple, chocolate pecan and pumpkin. I tried to make the crusts fancy but in transport from Boise to Morgan they got kind of destroyed... Sigh, oh well! The apple pie was probably the best again.

All dressed up in our autumn attire for Thanksgiving!

We decided to start a new tradition this year and celebrate White Friday instead of Black Friday by going to the temple. It was really neat to go to the Salt Lake temple for the first time.

After, we went to the City Creek shopping center and grabbed some lunch at the Blue Lemon. It was so delicious and a nice break from leftovers. Then, we walked around and did a little Christmas shopping/browsing while enjoying he decorations.

Browsing in Restoration Hardware-- I love that store. Bryan really liked these steam punk goggles.

We really enjoyed this fountain and all the lights. It was a nice transition into the Christmas season. When we were done shopping, it had gotten dark and so, as we walked back to the car, we were able to enjoy the lights at Temple Square. 

 On Saturday we celebrated Bryan's birthday with his family. He got a milkshake maker! That was a great investment-- we've had a lot of delicious milkshakes since.

He even got these really cool milkshake glasses that were the perfect final touch.

Callie came with us and got a lot more comfortable in the house but Cranberry the cat, who lives there, was not super happy sharing her domain...

 

On Sunday we headed back home. All in all it was a wonderful and mostly (besides the cooking!) relaxing holiday. Now we are looking forward to Christmas and after that I think we'll be kind of glad to have the holiday season behind us and get back to normal life.

Happy Birthday, Bryan!

This past Sunday was Bryan's twenty-sixth birthday. We are officially the same age again. On Saturday we went out to a Teppanyaki type Japanese restaurant where they put on a show and cook your food in front of you. It was just us two so we had to sit at a table with strangers but that was fine and we enjoyed ourselves. The day itself was pretty relaxed. We didn't have church because the Boise temple was being rededicated so we were able to sleep in. I made him crepes and bacon for breakfast and then he opened presents. We had them sitting out in our front room for the past couple of weeks upon his request and nearly every day he asked if he could open them.

After presents we got ready and headed to the re-dedication that was being broadcast in our stake center. It was such a beautiful thing to witness. I'm so grateful that we now have our temple operating again and it is really only like five minutes away. We are incredibly blessed to live here.

Then we just spent the rest of the day relaxing. I made Bryan's favorite dinner, Chicken Enchiladas, and a beautiful chocolate birthday cake.

It was very rich but very delicious. I had some extra cream cheese frosting from the middle of the cake so I just put it on top here.

My parents' present came yesterday so I got a picture of him opening some of his gifts.

Bryan seemed to enjoy the day as did I. I think I like pampering people on their birthdays more than my own birthday. I'm so happy that I get to be married to my best friend and spend every day together. Happy birthday, Bryan!

Love This Cat

Do you want a little insight into how adorable my days are?

Halloween

This year, Bryan and I had a relaxed Halloween with friends at our home. Leading up to it, I think I was more excited about our decorations than the actual day!

This is the third wreath I've made since we moved here and it is far from the last. This was another idea from Pinterest-- I love that site so much. Now that Halloween is over I put our fall wreath back up from a previous post.

Most of our decorations were courtesy of Target-- like this cute skeleton man!

Our cute little mantle.

Reusing the millions of bats that Bryan cut out for me last year! His efforts were not in vain.

We really like lanterns. Thank you, Target. 

In case you wanted a little video tour...

We did end up carving second pumpkins since our last ones rotted pretty quickly. It was fun, anyway!

Bryan did a winky emoticon.

I made a haunted house, using a template (though I just referenced it-- I free handed this with a dry erase marker instead of making all those little holes).

This year, Bryan and I were planning on staying home watching a movie and greeting trick or treaters. This would have been this first time in a while (possibly ever-- I can't remember if I dressed up in High School or not) that I wasn't going to dress up for Halloween. Then, the night before, our friends Lee and Suzanne asked if we wanted to do something for it and convinced us to dress up too, as they'd put a lot of thought into costumes but not so much into plans. All dressed up with nowhere to go-- that cliche in literal action, wow!

Anyway, I had some old costumes from previous events and decided we'd be 30's people since it was easy to turn into a couples costume without too much expense. Bryan and I went to a Murder Mystery in our old singles ward so we had a lot of the things but I did have to pick up a few things from Target. My pictures are a little dark. I shouldn't have resisted using flash!

Suzanne took much better photos with her sweet camera.

The Andersons were the Joker and Harley Quinn from Batman. 

Awesome creepy joker face.

Then we decide to watched old classic The Witches. Movies like that don't have the same effect when you're an adult but it was fine and free (thank you AmazonPrime Instant Streaming!) and an excuse to get together. We ate Halloween candy (no one came to our door!) and sugar cookies and that was it.

I did a finger wave in my hair, though it is mostly obscured by the fascinator veil. I'm not sure it turned out great but I spent a while on it so I took these pictures just before I disassembled it so I could remember what it looked like.

Halloween, check. Thanksgiving, here we come!

Birthday

My birthday was this past Sunday and I am now an old twenty-six year old. I think I realized something this year as birthday time rolled around. I was feeling rather amazed that half my life ago I was already as old as thirteen! I felt like, "This can't be right!" It seems like it took so long to get to thirteen, whereas the following thirteen years essentially flew by. So what I realized is that time seems longer the younger you are. I think the cut off point is around eighteen, when you graduate and move off to college. Everything before that, while not necessarily dragging on, seemed to go much more slowly. Once you hit college life speeds by and before you know it you're twenty-six, married, settled and you have a cat. Okay, well I guess it doesn't happen like that for everyone...

If ever my birthday lands on a Sunday it is always General Conference so I get to stay home in my pajamas for half the day. This is nice and I get the amazing gift of being able to hear from apostles and prophets on my birthday! However, I generally am not a fan of Sunday birthdays because I like to get gussied up and go out on the actual day of my birthday. Since that wasn't an option, we had a low key Sunday birthday where I opened presents, Bryan made me breakfast, we had cake and we took a nice walk downtown in the evening in this lovely autumn weather.  A few people asked me if Bryan was making my cake. No, though he did offer, I did make my own birthday cake. He said, "You have three options. I would be happy to make you a cake from a box or buy you a cake. You could also make your own cake and it would be delicious." So even though I like to be pampered on my birthday I also do still love to cook and bake and so I decided I'd try my hand at a carrot cake. It was very moist and quite delicious. Here is my final product:

We saved the more exciting plans for the next day. Bryan didn't have to work because it was Columbus day. In addition to all the main holidays he has off, there are four rather random throughout the year and he gets to choose two of them to take off. Columbus day just happened to fall nicely around my birthday. We slept in and then went to the Idaho Botanical Gardens. It was very nice and peaceful. There weren't many people there-- mostly because it was a Monday and more fall like weather. We wanted to check this place out and we had a lot of fun. One thing that was cool and also kind of surreal was that it was built near an old penitentiary so we saw a few tall guard posts around. I felt like I was in a movie of some sort. Anyway, I got a few pictures.

Beneath a stone gazebo.

Then, even though it is still early, we decided to carve pumpkins as a fun activity. I'm sure they'll rot before the holiday but we can always carve new ones. I made Harry Potter (is anyone surprised?) and Bryan made an Angry Bird.

Callie desperately wanted to come out. We let her out for a little bit but we live next to a pretty busy road and shes not well acquainted with the outdoors yet and kept running out of sight so we had to put her back in.

 Saving the seeds to roast them.

 Dry erase markers. Best idea I've ever had. 

After that, we went to Bonefish Grill in downtown to eat. I'd never been before but I'd seen it as we were driving one day and wanted to try it out. It was very nice. I had a steak and Maryland crab cake dinner!

Thus ended the birthday festivities but later that week we found out that Cirque du Soleil was visiting Boise and we decided, spur of the moment, to get tickets and go! We just went earlier today and it was very cool and actually very funny, too. It is amazing what humans can do! I doubt I'd ever have the coordination for any of it. I didn't get any pictures because they weren't allowed but here are our tickets. We were surprised when we got there at how good of seats we had! Very close to all of the action. Someday when we have kids we won't so much have the opportunity to do things like this so we decided to seize this chance. We sure do enjoy our life here in Boise.

Busy Bees

Well, September was sure a whirlwind month! It went by the fastest of all the months we've lived here so far. Last post was about us going to Ethan's baby blessing at the beginning of the month. We visited Utah again in the middle of the month so that Bryan could take part in recruiting for his company at BYU! It was fun to be back there as a visitor even though it hasn't been all that long since we lived there.

Here is Bryan at Clearwater's booth. I came to meet him at the end so it was half taken down by this point but I wanted to get a shot of him here anyway.

When we were done in Provo we headed up to South Jordan and had a fondue party with our friends the Pfaffs and the Jasps and then we spent the rest of the weekend with family. I didn't really take pictures to post up here but I happened to be taking a video of cute Ethan when the following occurred. (Sorry it is sideways!)

We came back to Boise for less than a week and then flew out to Maryland that next Saturday for Jack and Sylvie's baby blessings! I was so excited to meet these little guys for the first time and to spend time at my home with my family. There is nothing quite so comforting as that, it seems.

Here are a a few pictures I took from our time in Maryland. Here is sweet Sylvie, sleeping soundly in mom's arms. She spent a lot of time sleeping!

I liked this picture of my mom. I don't think she knew I was taking a picture. She just seems so genuinely happy. Jack is, of course, so adorable. On Sunday he slept in my arms and it was the most precious thing.

Ivy loved playing hide and go seek with us. I found her in a cabinet like this. She didn't seem to realize she'd been found-- I think she thought if she couldn't see you, you couldn't see her.

Here's Uncle Bryan entertaining Ava by pretending his tie is an elephant nose. I just love the look on her face.

Here are Jack and I on the blessing day. I almost missed the blessings altogether! I was sitting with Ivy on my lap as Sacrament Meeting began and she suddenly got a bloody nose. I had to run her to the bathroom to help with it. By the time it was finally done and she was cleaned up I walked back in and they were announcing the blessings. That was close! I'm so glad her nose cleared up just in time.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture with either baby in their blessing outfits-- I think their parents wanted to get them out of white clothes before they did what babies do best.

Do you see what I mean about the sleeping? She would be in her car seat for what seemed like hours just sleeping while we all talked loudly around her. I lifted up her car seat cover and snapped this shot (don't worry, no flash!).

I could have sworn I had gotten a picture of Bryan holding Jack as well but I can't find that anywhere. Pretty disappointing but this one is still pretty cute.

I know you thought that picture of Sylvie smiling was precious so here you go!

We flew back home on Monday-- what a short trip!We are glad to be done with traveling for a while and ready to enjoy our first autumn in Boise. The weather is starting to cool down and some of the leaves are changing color. I think this is one of the most exciting times of the year!