Vegas

Here are some pictures of our most recent vacation


Kissing atop the Eiffel Tower at The Paris


The Scenic strip




"I"m proud to be an American"
Our good friends Trent and Erin from Georgia met us in Vegas and it was a great time. These are pictures from our drive through Red Rock Canyon.




After the Canyon experience, we headed in the opposite direction to the Hoover Dam! Jeph and I have always wanted to go there so it was fun to be able to see it in real life!


Believe it or not but Jeph was taking a picture of the clock.






Jeph was way excited because a few weeks before our trip, he watched a documentary about this new bridge they are building and all the fascinating stuff that goes into it.




On our way back into town we stopped by the famous Vegas welcome sign. Then it was off to Planet Hollywood for....

An Acoustic Evening with Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds!!!!

Jeph has been dying to see these two in concert for many years and after the DMB Salt Lake show was canceled this year (for the second year in a row) I promised him we could go to this concert to make up for it. It really was a fun show and I'm glad I could be there to see the joy on Jeph's face the whole night. Our seats weren't too bad either-front row of the balcony.







This was Erin's first time in Vegas so we took a day to go through all the hotels on the strip and see all the attractions. It was exhausting.



Luckily though, Trent and Erin are both into the Food Network and were kind enough to treat us to a dinner at Bobby Flay's Las Vegas restaurant- Mesa Grill!! It was delicious and we would recommend it to anyone.

This is mine and Jeph's SIXTEEN SPICE CRUSTED CHICKEN with Mango-Garlic Sauce

Erin's SMOKED CHICKEN + BLACK BEAN QUESADILLA with Avocado & Toasted Garlic Creme Fraiche

And Trent's GRILLED FLORIDA BLACK GROUPER with Red Chile-Tomato Sauce, Crushed Avocado & Barbequed Red Onion. Sadly, Jeph and I ate our Roasted Pumpkin Soup before we could get a picture of it.

For Mike Bailey

The Bellagio was the only hotel that actually felt like it was Christmas time.




These Polar Bears were made out our flowers. You can see the water leaking out of them.



Typical Trent


Dessert! This was our Deep Dried Oreo Sunday. Delicious, but I'm very glad that we can say we didn't finish it!


All in all, it was a really good time with some good friends and good entertainment. I don't think Jeph could have asked for a better Christmas Present!

Apples Down Memory Lane

When we went to visit my parents in Idaho in November, my parents enticed us into using our skills to make more food storage for us. They showed us their collection of apples and we started on the applesauce and later some apple juice. (We stole all the pictures from my parents since we were not smart enough to bring our camera with us that weekend).
We used the entire blue bucket of apples to make 10 gallons of apple juice.

We made 40 quarts of applesauce that was absolutely delicious!!!
Here we are using the apple press that my dad made to make us some apple juice. We were very fascinated at the process or making apple juice. That was a first for us and it is the best apple juice we've ever had. We did not have to add any sugar, just a little cinnamon for added flavor. Gotta love home grown apples!



After all of our hard work, Jeph and I treated ourselves to a night out. We took my brother to meet up with his wife to watch her sister play basketball at Minico High School. We walked around to see all the changes that they've made since I graduated almost 9 years ago. Some things were very different while others definitely have not changed. We watched the last 10 minutes of the game and it was just so strange to look around and see the banner with the fight song (provided by the class of 2001). The gym seems so much smaller than I remember as well and it was fun to see some old teachers in the crowd. Oh the good ole days at Minico High School!

WE MUST PROTECT THIS HOUSE!

Since I went to BYU-Idaho where there were no college teams, I sometimes feel like I missed out on that one small part of college life. So since I moved to a town where the college team is a big deal, I thought it would be fun to go to a game. Jeph found us some free tickets to the game in November. We were freezing but we had a great time and are glad we went.
U-T-A-H Fight! Fight! Fight!

Missing:

Small cute, brown and tan colored puppy. We are very concerned because we woke up and our little puppy had disappeared. We could not find our little, fluffy, brown pup anywhere.



In his place we found this white/silver puppy. We would love to have our puppy back so if any of you have lost yours and have ours, we are willing to trade back.
However, that face does look oddly familiar.

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year with the Simmons family. We enjoyed watching the new Christmas Carol movie and then dinner at Mimi's Cafe with Mike and Lynn and Kim and Mike. The other siblings celebrated with their families or live out of state so the big dinner wasn't until the following day. We started the day after Thanksgiving with a little 5k on Brighton High's track. Then ate lots of food. Jeph borrowed a frier and fried his first turkey ever and I was put in charge of candied yams. They were both delish! (Pictures of Jeph's first Turkey fry to come)

We have so much to be thankful for this year. We both have jobs that are flexible and work with us as needed. We are both in school and are doing well in our classes. We have two cars which makes life much easier. We are buying our condo. We have enjoyed vacationing to Georgia, Tennessee, Montana, Nevada, and many weekend trips to our own private Idaho. We have a new little puppy, whom we love much more than we expected to. We have two very wonderful families. We still enjoy being together after two whole years of marriage. We are most thankful that God loves us and blesses us as we make Him a bigger part of our lives.

The Stache

As you all may recall, I have a very handsome husband. However, a friend once informed my handsome husband that he though Jeph could grow a nice mustache. Well, Jeph decided to see if he was right and he started growing the stache.
After several weeks, Jeph was successful, and in fact was able to grow a very full stache but he looked like a creeper. With compliments from some people and the opposite from others, Jeph decided to keep it until Halloween for his costume at work. But when Halloween was over, the stache needed to come off.
Jeph was experimenting with different stache do's and eventually decided that the one he started with was the best.
So after weeks of uncertainty about where my handsome husband had gone, we finally found him again and are certain that I do have a handsome husband and not a creeper or molester of any sort. Thank goodness for that!

David Gray & Lisa Hannigan

We both love David Gray's music so when we heard he was coming to town we were first in line to buy tickets. The concert was phenomenal, David Gray is brilliant, and we cannot wait until he comes to town again!
!
To makes things better, the show was started with an opening act from Lisa Hannigan. We'd actually heard of Lisa before because she sings with Damian Rice on his album O. We love that album a lot so we were looking forward to hearing what she would do on her own. She was pretty good (I think Jeph mentioned something about a new music crush).