CONGRATS MIKE & KIM!!!

Concerts!!

This past week we were able to hit up 2 different concerts and had a blast at each of them! For each of them we had some pretty cool couples accompanying us so we felt pretty lucky. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Laurie (my sister) and Ken. We knew this was the only way to get them to come visit us in Utah!











































Thank you Laurie for some of the pictures



Concert #2- Colbie Caillat and John Mayer!! For this concert we went with Jeph's brother Mike and his fiancee Kim (more pictures to come). With them getting married in 2 days, we figured this would be a fun wedding present for them. Congrats, guys!!

Sad News

As some of you may have heard, today the LDS church announced that effective immediately, no North American missionaries would be called to serve in Russia. Those already in Russia will finish their service but those that are currently in the MTC will be reassigned. The church reports that the Russian Government now requires humanitarian visas to be renewed every 3 months instead of the old way of once a year. With 9 Russian missions and approximately 90-100 Americans in each, this is simply too costly for the LDS church.
It is interesting to hear this announcement as just yesterday I had expressed to my family my concern that in the near future, missionaries would be pulled out of Russia. With the recent events that have happened and the official statement the Russian Government issued against the U.S. this past week, it is apparent that the mother land is still hostile and preparing to hear the Gospel.
I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve in Russia and meet those great friends that I was able to become acquainted with. Some of the strongest members are hidden in the smallest villages there and Satan is trying his best to keep the remnants of the lost tribes of Israel from hearing the word of God. I do not worry though, this will not stop the work. Because of the humble circumstances many members are in, the church is all they have and they will sacrifice anything for this work and its progression. The Lord has prepared many people to receive the blessings of the gospel and they will hear it one way or another! The work will prevail!

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700243183,00.html

Randomness

We had a great 4th of July this year but were dumb enough to only get these 2 pictures of the whole day. The day started off bright and early at the Murray City Parade because my friend Lacey was in it and because Jeph had never been to a parade before. Lacey was good enough to make sure we got some water and a visor when her float passed us on by. After the parade we knew that the most American breakfast would be a McDonald's breakfast so we indulged and took a nap while watching a series on the Revolution on the History channel. For lunch we had a BBQ with Jeph's family and then were off to Western Stampede rodeo with Mike and Kim! Jeph and I both tried to dress up the best we could and tried our best to fit in with the rest of the crowd.














Jeph enjoying his almonds















This is a picture of our new dining table! Mike and Kim bought the exact same table and after we saw it in their new place, we knew that we wanted something similar. Since they didn't mind us copying them, we went and got the same table for a great deal!



















Last week, was the 3rd annual Simmons Family Lagoon Day. This was the first year Jeph and I were able to attend and it was a blast! Stay tuned for the pictures coming soon!

Tim McGrawff and Kalai concerts

A few months ago, I came home from work and Jeph hadn't gotten home yet, but on the table there was a bouquet of flowers and two tickets to see Tim McGraw. I was way stoked because I do love country music but I figured the delivery had been to the wrong house since I know how much Jeph despises country. Especially because Jeph tries to tell me all songs are just like Tim's song about the BBQ stain on his white t-shirt song and called him Tim McGrawff, really thinking that was the guy's name. But come June 27th we did end up at the Usana Amphitheatre watching Tim and Jeph admitted to enjoying the show. He said it wasn't Dave but it was still fun.





























This is way late, but at the beginning of May SLCC had an end of the semester party and Kalai provided a free concert. So for our Friday Night Date we headed over to see Kalai play and it was tons of fun. It was a small crowd and we even went up to talk to him after and tell him we are related to the famous Mike Simmons who was the Assistant Engineer on his most recent album Crows Feet. He said Mike was one of the best he'd ever worked with and I believed him but Jeph thinks he was just saying that.

Before Picture

We found a picture from before we took over and changed everything. Here it is:













And Jeph was freaking awesome and installed the new recessed lights so here's that too:

The Kitchen

So Jeph and I have been spending pretty much all of our spare time in the kitchen lately, but unfortunately it was not to perfect our cooking skills, as many of you may have hoped. Instead we have been working on our construction skills. Yes, in our kitchen. We started by changing the wall color from off-white to mellow yellow, painting our brass chandelier black and buying new light covers that are a little more modern. Once we realized how bad the mellow yellow and our golden yellow cabinets looked together, we took on the big project of re-staining them to a lovely mahogany red. This took a lot more time than we were planning and it left our kitchen a disaster for a good week. In the mean time, Jeph found a great deal on a dishwasher and stove on KSL classifieds so we bought new used white appliances and sold our old almond colored ones on KSL. That's just the big stuff. The little things include the new hardware on the cabinet doors, a new faucet for our sink, taking out the florescent lights and putting up on of those pan holder things, and under-cabinet lighting. We also bought great track lighting from IKEA to go in our light box but after buying three different sets of the same track and none of them working out, we finally decided that tomorrow we will by the expensive lighting from Home Depot or Lowes. We finally realized that paying triple the price for lights that work will be worth it!

















Jeph and the old chandelier
















Old stove and dishwasher (note the old color of the cabinets, we forgot to take pictures before so this is all you get of that old color)













New stove and dishwasher!
















Our messy kitchen with no cabinet doors












Awesome new chandelier


















Overall finished look so far




















New faucet
















Future projects we would like to work on are the counter tops and donating our table and chairs to the newlyweds, Dave and Kim and getting something new. Good times!

6 random things about me!

Tagged By Lacey!


1 – I LOVE to watch HGTV!!! If I could, I would stay home everyday just to watch House Hunters, My First Place, Deserving Design, Color Splash, Designed to Sell, Free Style, Myles of Style and all of the other great shows. I am especially excited for Design Star to start up again this week, designer reality show, what could be better. The only drawback is that it makes us want a home that we can fix up and we just can’t do that right now, but thanks to a great renter, aka my mother-in-law, who is kind enough to let us make a few “upgrades” in her condo!
2 – I HATE HATE HATE Bandaids with a passion!!!! GROSS!! The thought of them makes me want to throw up! Not joking! I will never use one, I hate to see other people wearing them, and I refuse to buy them for my family (bless whoever invented liquid bandaids)! I am also not such a fan of stickers. Once again the thought of something sticky like that touching my skin makes me cringe.
3 – I cannot handle cluttered spaces. I never understood growing up why my mom would get so upset if they house was a little messy when she got home, but now if our condo is even a little cluttered I get so stressed and I can’t focus or relax until it is clean.
4 – I am not a picky eater but I hate cherries, almost all seafood, and I’ve recently discovered I am allergic to bananas. Other than that, I’ll eat almost anything especially if it’s made with chocolate!!!
5 – Most days I enjoy my job and the dysfunctional people I work with. Other days I am convinced that anyone who decides to reproduce should be required to pass a background check, complete parenting classes and a mental health assessment.
6 – I love holidays! I love big celebrations that last all day long, sometimes days long! One-hour dinner parties do not suffice when it comes to celebrating holidays and I get really disappointed with small celebrations because it feels like the holiday is forgotten or unappreciated. I guess that’s what happens when you are from a small town and there isn’t a lot to look forward besides the holiday festivities. Everyone seems to put a lot more effort into the celebration when there isn’t any other form of entertainment around but I love it that way!


I tag Kim, Beth, Lisa, Marianna, and Laurie

Memorial Weekend / Wilson Family Reunion

Last weekend Jeph and I went to Idaho to hang out with my family for the weekend. It was tons of fun and crazy as always. Some of the highlights include the drive through the City of Rocks, well known as a great place to rock climb, however, only Jeph and Joel were brave enough to climb to the top of Bathtub Rock. It was quite rainy that day and made the rocks slippery, so the rest of us used that excuse.

We celebrated my brother Spencer's graduation from college. After 10 years of marraige, four kids, working full time all 8 years he went to school, Spencer finally graduated. We're all very proud of how hard he worked and all the other things he accomplished a long the way.

The family threw a birthday party for everyone who had birthdays within the last few months and Jeph because we missed the last birthday party so we had to wait til this one. Happy Birthday Jeph, two and a half months later!!!

I think the biggest shocker of the weekend was that Jeph and I actually helped milk the cows. (Growing up, I was always the one who wasn't tough enough to be a farm girl and the family agreed with me when I said 'I am really a city girl born in the wrong place,' so I married a city boy!) But they actually left us there without supervision to run the facility for awhile. We were pretty successful, I must admit, all those years of pretending I didn't know what I was doing to get out of the work seemed to catch up with me and I found I knew more than I let anyone think. Unfortunatly I didn't take my camera out with me so I didn't get any pictures of that event and my family probably still don't believe it really happened because there is no physical proof. I figured it was better that way. (This is a picture at our farm, just not Jeph and I milking)

Besides our wedding, this was Jeph's largest exposure to the Wilson family, which could seem a little overwhelming with almost 40 of us there, but he seemed to handle it very well. It is always fun to get to be with my family since some only get to come home once or twice a year. We love 'em all!!! (Sadly not everyone made it for this picture but, what could Kami do, she is in the Philippines, and Laurie's family of 8 showed up a few mintues too late for pictures. But we still love and claim all of them!!!)

The dream is over

Tonight, the Jazz faced the LA Lakers and even with the completely embarrassing first half, managed to take the game down to the very last seconds. In a rare home loss, the Jazz were eliminated from this season's Playoff competition. It was a good run and the Jazz should be proud of what they accomplished this year. Although it was a heartbreaking end, it was well faught and there is no shame being eliminated by the MVP and future 2008 NBA champions.
Anyway, now to the real post. We were able to get some fairly cheap tickets to game 3 of this series and had a blast. It was initially Venita's idea to go (I think to see David Archuletta sing the national anthem) but I couldn't turn down such an opportunity. The game was great, we got free shirts and Venita caught some weird paper clapper thing. After the game we decided to go down to the lower bowl to listen to the post-game interviews and we were allowed to have our picture taken at center court. I was very excited and as we were leaving we ran into former player Mark Eaton. I couldn't pass up the opportunity for a picture.
Anyway, the season is over and now I must look back at the fond memories of the season. Watch out though, next year is ours!!!