pictures

San Antonio Texas

We had such a great time in Vegas! Saying that Phantom was AMAZING is an under statement. The stuff that they do with the stage blows your mind away. I don't want to give anything away for those who would like to see it sometime...so just know its awesome. The strip is a scary place now. Next time we go to Vegas we are going to avoid walking down the strip because they have pole dancers in every hotel/ casino window. We ate at Planet Hollywood the first night and they had a stage in the middle of the casino for some strippers/pole dancers (I felt bad for all the young cheerleading groups that were there). They even had them next to the elevators in our hotel. We stayed at the Mirage. Also, I think that the buffets have gone down hill. We ate at the Winn because it got the best reviews and it was really expensive and not that great ( We were disappointed because we waited an hour). The Paris buffet blows now according to most people...it use to be good. Oh well, Phantom was amazing and shopping was fun.

Now we are in Murrieta for the holidays. ITS BEEN SO NICE TO BE HOME!! We had a great Christmas. Its so nice to just relax and visit with both our families and friends. We do not want to go back to Utah!! We went to the Melting Pot again... this time with Adam's family. We did the whole appetizer, entree, and dessert this time. It was all pretty good but the dessert is the best part FYI. This happened on friday. Then we came over to my house and my brother opened his mission call...he is going to San Antonio Texas!!!!!! We are all so excited. He leaves in 8 weeks :) This is our most recent news. Happy Holidays!!

We are spoiled

I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are going to see Phantom of the Opera in Vegas on the 20th! :) We got such good seats too! We are sitting in the middle of the Golden Circle, twelve rows back from the stage. We are spending two nights in Vegas so we can enjoy the strip and SHOP! (This is our AWESOME Christmas present from both of our parents) SCORE!

Lights and Chocolate

We enjoyed looking at the lights at temple square with Lisa and Lee. It was opening night so it was a bit crowded but we expected that. The temple is just so beautiful and its amazing how many lights they wrap around those trees. We were so excited to try out the Melting Pot afterwards. It met my expectations for sure. You can't go wrong with chocolate!

Turkey and Drumsticks

We had an AWESOME thanksgiving!!! Adam made his mother's famous squash and apples which was a big hit. We spent thanksgiving over at my aunt Nina's house. Her cooking school training and years of experience continues to amaze us all. Oh and my uncle made his famous mashed potatoes (the secret is out he adds real cream and cream cheese). Most of my mom's side of the family was there so it was so nice to get together and spend time with everyone. We played apples to apples and catch phrase after we ate one of the best meals of all time. Thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday. I love the food...and its about the only left overs that I actually enjoy eating. Adam and I decided to end thanksgiving with a bang so we went out and bought an Xbox 360 pro along with Rockband. I have wanted it ever since I played it for the first time on Halloween. Adam has wanted it for A LONG time. We are so excited to now own it and have been playing it ever since we got it. I am on a break right now to write this and to rest my hands and shin. Those drums tire you out! Adam is still playing. He does check the football game every so often though lol he is far more addicted than me. I think its hilarious. He is already an expert on the guitar and can play drums at the hard level. They are so hard. I struggle with the easy level lol and I am only at the medium level for the guitar.

Grandma wanted us to set up Christmas last night. She was so excited; how could we say no? The only thing we still have to do is hang up some Christmas lights. We are debating if we should do icicle lights or some twinkling colored lights. All this setting up has put me in the mood for Christmas, so Adam and I are going to drive to Salt Lake with friends to go look at the lights at temple square tonight. I am excited! Also, Adam and I have been talking about going to see Phantom of the Opera this Christmas break, and spending some time in Vegas on our way to Cali!! We have both been dying to see it. I sure hope we go!

Sweet Husband & Cookies

I was craving some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies when I got home from church yesterday, but was too tired to make any. I laid down and took a nap and woke up to my husband making these cookies for me :D They are wicked good! I would go as far as saying probably the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I have ever eaten. I took some to school today and shared them with one of my research groups. Everyone enjoyed them so I thought I would share the recipe.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
(from The Frog Commissary Cookbook)
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups oats (rolled or "quick," but not "instant")
2 cups chocolate chips (about 12-oz.)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and the sugars until mixture is light in color. Beat in the eggs one at a time, followed by the milk and the vanilla extract.
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Either by hand or with the mixer on low speed, gradually beat the flour in to the sugar mixture until just incorporated.
Stir in the oats and chocolate chips by hand.
Drop 1-inch balls of dough onto the cookie sheet, placing about 1 1/2 inches apart so they have room to spread.
Bake at 350F for 10-13 minutes, until golden brown at the edges and light golden at the center.
Cool on baking sheet for at least 1-2 minutes before transfering to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 4 dozen.

TWILIGHT

Even though Twilight got horrible reviews I had to go see it. I thought the movie was pretty good. There were parts that were left out but that is expected. A few parts were very cheesy and lame but overall they did a good job. GO SEE IT! ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE DOING IT! I am glad they are making "New Moon" into a movie :)

Red Mango vs. Hello Yogurt

Tonight Adam and I discovered a new frozen yogurt place after our temple trip. I am proud to say we have kept up with our monthly tradition. However, we weren't able to go on our anniversary date this month because it fell on Sunday. We have started the tradition of getting either ice cream or frozen yogurt after each temple trip.
We both really like Red Mango..and simply put who doesn't? But, we decided to venture out this time and try this new place that opened up called Hello Yogurt. I will now tell you the pros and cons of both that way you can decide which place suites your fancy. Red Mango by far has a better selection of fruit toppings. They ONLY offer original tangy yogurt though...but it tastes so good with raspberries and blueberries!! That is what I get everytime. (they have another flavor but its not important because who wants green tea yogurt?)Hello Yogurt offers 6 flavors at a time and they switch them out. So really the options are endless. Tonight I tried their Irish mint and chocolate swirl with gummy bears and reeses pieces, and it was VERY SCRUMPTIOUS!! They have more candy toppings to choose from than Red Mango. They are both really good. I just like the fact that hello yogurt has so many different flavors.

WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!?!?!

Sooo Adam and I went out to Red Robin tonight to sorta celebrate our three month anniversary, which was yesterday(Can't really go out on the sabbath) AND funny thing so everyone knows how Red Robin has fun signs all around right?..well I was pointing at this sign that I remember my 9th grade teacher having in her class room...and I started nudging Adam to look over at it...I turned to look at him to see if he was looking at the sign...then I turned back to notice MY EX standing right between me and the sign and I was pointing right at him...not to mention he was only like 3 feet away. I guess he was sitting right behind us. The booths are so tall we wouldn't have been able to see each other...but he stood up and there I was pointing at him with my full arm extended while I was nudging my husband. I thought it was pretty funny. I think he was totally embarrassed because he just walked away quickly. Our relationship ended on bad terms...otherwise I would have said hi and what not. Seriously though..what are the odds?

So I never mentioned how on the ball these Utah wards are up here. We got callings so quickly and just spoke in sacrament meeting yesterday.

Isn't this cute!

I made this cute tutu and headband at Lisa's baby shower tonight. I just thought it was such a cute idea and loved how easy it was to make them. I already told my cousin Lori I was going to give it to her baby girl. It was hard to take pictures of though b/c of the shinny tool. It looks a lot cuter in person. I even tried it on for fun :oP

School=Stress

There are only six weeks left in the semester WOO WHOO!! These next couple weeks are going to be killer trying to cram every project and paper in before thanksgiving break. I can't say that I enjoy these late night study sessions in the library. I practically live at school. Adam and I get up and go to school at 7:30am and sometimes don't get home until 7:30 pm. Its been paying off though, I was pleasantly surprised with my test score I received tonight. Thankfully I only have one more test left to take before our lovely two day break. I seriously wish I never had to read another text book again. My eyes are still hurting and recovering from my earlier studies.

On another note, I'm not sure if I am excited about Utah beating TCU. Like Adam, I am glad that Utah barely beat them. I would have been nice too though if TCU would have creamed Utah. Dang rivals! I sure hope they don't win the MWC.

Adam dyed my hair

It's a bit dark but he still loves me. He says I look like snow white. This is the first time I have used store bought dye because I have had a hair dresser my whole life. I think Adam did a fairly good job and we saved like $55 :)

Yum Yum!

I decided to make some pumpkin pie today :) I used this easy no fail pie crust recipe and used regular milk instead of butttermilk. It's a keeper!

2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 c. buttermilk
2/3 c. vegetable oil

Measure flour and salt. Add milk and oil. Stir only until dry ingredients are blended in. Divide dough in half. Roll each portion between 2 pieces of wax paper. Remove top layer of wax paper and transfer crust into pie plate with bottom wax paper still intact and on top. Remove wax paper from crust and shape edges as desired. Repeat with second portion of recipe. So easy and delicious.
NOTE: I like to chill my completed pie shell in freezer 1 to 2 hours before baking for extra crispness of a 1 crust pie. Yield: 1 double pie or 2 single pie shells.

Our Pumpkin Carvings

Our pumpkin pickins weren't so good this year. Adam's pumpkin has fungus or something nasty growing on the outside and the walls of our pumpkins are super thick, which made them ridiculously hard to carve. We were going to go all out this year and make fun shadows to go along with our pumkins, but school has been a big pain in the rear and we were too exhausted last night to try to make it work. Oh well...I was going to make a cat shadow hovering over the mice and Adam was going to have Trick or Treat as his shadow.

Getting ready for the season

Its about that time of year again, where my husband and I go coocoo for creepy stuff. We love it: the horror movies,haunted houses,and mazes. Tomorrow night I am going to the witches festival up in Salt Lake with the girls =)I can't wait!
Adam and I also enjoy the good stuff: the candy, the costumes,and the pumpkin carving. We are especially excited this year to carve our pumpkins :) We got some good pickins early last week(Adam picked the short fat one and I picked the tall one). Adam actually wanted to carve his pumpkin last weekend but I told him if he did it wouldn't last for Halloween. He apparently "googled" it to make sure I was telling him the truth because I overheard him talking to one of his friends when he said, "So I was looking forward to carving pumpkins this weekend but my wife and google said not to." I just laughed cuz he googles everything.
So, I just made Adam these quick and easy pumpkin cookies to come home to, cuz they are a favorite of ours to make during the seasons. (They are AWESOME and do not contain butter!) I made them to cheer him up really cuz he had to meet with his lazy group tonight. He has been fed up with them b/c he has been doing all the work.

Macy's

Disclaimer: Holly tells me she wants to use this blog as a journal of our adventures/experiences, so even the lame everyday stuff is gonna get put in here.

We got a Kitchen Aid mixer a couple of weeks ago as a wedding gift from our relatives. It's been sitting, or rather rolling around making horrible crashing noises while picking up several nice dents on the box, ever since. We didn't mean to let it sit in the car so long, intending to take it back to Macy's and trade it in for a different color or even upgrade it to a larger size. However, we are a couple of lazy bums and let the "school" excuse justify the thumping and sliding box which constantly rams the walls of the trunk everytime I make a turn. I guess you could say it was a daily reminder of the task we were supposed to do and yet continually procrastinated. Well today Holly and I said enough is enough and we took the expensive noise maker back to the store and up three flights of stairs for our refund. A few things happened once in the store. First: waiting around, holding a 50 lb box, for a customer service employee to materialize while other Macy's employees went about their business often glancing in our direction and giving us the, "I don't work that department" look. Second: when the customer service employee finally showed up and scanned the barcode on our mixer the computer showed the product was bought on sale for $120 dollars cheaper than what was printed on the box, and a full $220 (after mail in rebate) less than the cost of what the upgrade would be. Talk about a kick to the wallet (where the wallet is positioned between your legs). We asked them if we could just trade it in for a different color, black perhaps, but they told us this one only came in white....lovely. So, what do you do? We decided to take store credit instead and took our lovely little $191.78 gift card to the bedding section to find a ridiculously overpriced duvet cover. The one we landed on was a wonderful, shiny-grey $270 sheet that does nothing more than cover the down comforter which we bought at Costco for almost a third of that price. Lucky for us, some pimply-faced, minimum wage earning employee forgot to take down a forgotten sale sign that announced a previous (and not still current) price of $199. We jumped all over this and coupled with the fact that I had registered us at Macy's (although I never added anything to the registry, this is just a neat little trick to get discounts) we got an additional 10% off and would you believe our total came out to be $191.78, the exact amount of credit we got from the mixer trade in. Coincidence or what? So after walking in lugging a ridiculously heavy, overpriced but bought on sale mixer that turned my trunk into a maraca, we strolled out with an almost empty bag, containing a sewn piece of material probably made by a sweatshop worker in China. But who cares...we didn't have to pay for it. Boy am I gonna sleep good tonight.

Adam and I decided not to do our hw this last weekend

This last weekend Adam and I decided we needed to do something fun since we usually just do homework. I finished my last test for the week friday night around 8:30 pm. Adam didn't finish his last test until saturday morning after his soccer game (which I froze my butt off watching in the snow!) After Adam got home he cleaned the house :) I know he is a sweetheart. Then, we decided we better get something to eat before we met up with Colby(One of Adam's mission companions) and his fiance. We pulled up to Del Taco since it was right by the place we were meeting. We both don't really like Del Taco but we decided we were too hungry to care. So we ordered and then got a phone call from Colby saying, "Hey, do you guys want to go out to dinner?" We were just about to pull up to the window..Adam looked at me and then I looked at him..then without hesitation Adam quickly drove through the drive through without stopping at either window. We both laughed about it after. We meet up with Colby and his fiance and decided to eat after we went to the Haunted Forest. His fiance was afraid she would get too scared and throw up her food. I realized she was serious when we got there, because she screamed and ran through the entire thing. I was getting a kick out of it because she was just as entertaining as the monsters. After, we ate at a sit down burger joint that was really good. Colby took pictures with my camera which didn't turn out because he forgot to turn the flash on. So, Adam and I took some silly pictures when we got home. Adam decided he wanted to follow up the haunted forest with a scary movie. We went over to Hollywood and rented the Boogieman and Adam told me the next morning that he had a nightmare about it lol.



Sunday, Adam and I went over to my aunts house and had dinner with the extended family. It was really nice to take a break from school the whole weekend. My uncle told this really spiritual experience that touched everyone. Then we watched the movie about Emma. I wish the weekend never ended!! I don't want to write my paper or study for my test :/

Our story

How it all began
Adam and I met in the Fall of 2007 at our BYU ward. We lived in the same apartment complex (good-old Belmont), the ghetto apartments south of campus, not the nice condos. Ironically, we are both from southern California. We had to come all the way to BYU to meet, when we lived like 3 miles away from each other back home (Adam is from Temecula and I am from Murrieta). When we first met I was in another relationship, but as fate would have it, Adam ended up winning my heart. I realized how perfect we were for one another. Adam is my best friend and the most sincere person I have ever known. He basically realized how lucky he was to have such an awesome girl in his life and knew he wanted to be with me forever and proposed to me on his birthday(March 11th). We got married August 16th 2008 which was a day full of overwhelming happiness and excitement. We are now currently living in Orem, while we finish up school at BYU. We are both studying psychology so we can analyze each other. We find time for fun even though we both have hectic schedules. Adam only has a year left of school, while I am trying to cram in classes to finish in a year and a half (Thats what happens when you switch your major too many times).

Brittanie this is for you!

I took Adam to Medieval Times last night. We had a lot of fun. It was the first friday night Adam and I have been able to spend together since May. I am always working friday nights thanks to my three jobs. Since I was able to get the night off I wanted to celebrate. We had an awesome time cheering for our red knight. He was the cutest of them all. I inhaled the meal they served us. It was really good. Adam took a while to finish his and I thought about stealing some of his food. Then I remembered I am getting married in five weeks and can't afford to gain any weight : / Anyways, Adam really enjoyed being there since he loves anything to do with King Arthur. He told me on Thursday that his favorite movies are one's that consist of the medieval era or war, so I was really excited to take him there.

-Holly