Friday, July 27, 2012

Twilight Series: Band of Horses




We finally made it to the Twilight Concert Series. Unfortunately this is the first of the series that we have made it to so far. Hopefully more to come. Last night was a good one though, Band of Horses was pretty great!


Cole and Heather picked us up and we parked in Cole's new apartment complex that he has yet to move into. Long story. Luckily we didn't get towed. We met up with Cole's sister, Jenny. It's funny because we actually had like several other people to meet up with but none of them happened. We tried to find our neighbor Ryan forever with no luck, Jenny had a friend she tried to find, never saw him, Heather was supposed to meet up with her sister, didn't happen, and our friend Ali never found us either. Too many people at these things!


Cole's face. Ha!




Happy 24th!



The morning of the 24th of July, which is Utah's Pioneer Day Celebration, a big holiday for Utahan's; we met Derek's family at Ruth's Diner in Immigration Canyon. Breakfast at Ruth's is so much fun! They have a beautiful patio and amazing food. The biscuits and jam, Oh my gosh! Of course, I had to leave from there to work, because that's what I do: Love working holidays! 
Getting out of the city was nearly impossible. There were marathons and parades being set up everywhere. So they block off all sorts of roads, basically blocking you into the city. It took me 40 minutes just to get to the freeway entrance, which is usually just a 5 min drive. Needless to say I was very late to work. 



After work, Shirley and Shara came back down to go to Liberty Park and watch the fireworks with us. Liberty was crazy crowded! Surprisingly it wasn't exactly the type of crowd you would expect to see at a Pioneer Day celebration. That's all I will say about that. 
We had a ton of fun though. Lots of vendors and yummy food. Derek bought a pretty, lacy shirt for Shara and a cute little dream catcher for me. I'm going to hang it from my mirror in Sadie. 
This was Tundra's first firework show, and he did very well. No freaking out. 
So we ate popcorn, watched the mediocre firework show, and walked home. It was a nice evening. 

Derek's grizzly beard






Monday, July 23, 2012

Peno Meter


Yay! 
We finally have a jalapeno growing! And it happened so quick. Plus there is another little guy growing out too. We are excited! Not too sure why I'm so excited, I don't eat them. Nonetheless, it's still fun!



Okay it has seriously been like 2 months. Our one jalapeno has survived but never grew any bigger. We really thought he was going to die for a while. But he just hung in there. No other penos grew either.
 It was weird. 
Then... All of a sudden.... 


Our peno started turning red. I had no idea they do that. It's pretty awesome looking. Derek is now super excited to eat him because they are supposed to be hotter. Plus, look at all the flowers. Penos grow out of the flowers. It's like the whole plant went into a coma and just woke back up. Hopefully I will post a plant with many penos soon!

Finally used our one peno! Derek proceeded to mix chili in with this. Yuck!






POUNDCAKE'S


Derek bought us a fun little Groupon to a Wiseguys performance at Poundcake's in Trolley Square. It actually took us forever to use it because it only worked on certain shows, but it turned out to be way cooler than we had even planned on. We totally want to go to more comedy shows now. The Groupon included two refillable drinks and an appetizer. Of course, we got the fatty of all appetizers. It was called the Poundcake Platter which included all the other appetizers, ha ha! We actually didn't end up getting the one thing we planned on though. Getting a piece of their famous pound cake. 
Next time!






Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Live Free

Sometimes life breaks your heart. No matter how much you agree with the situation, or even if you would have chosen the same route had you been given the choice, you feel like you've been betrayed. If only you could see the world day by day instead of dwelling on what's to come.

I've always said my goal in life has been to "live free". Seriously who does that anyway? It seems nearly impossible in the normal life we lead.
Sometimes I feel like people may see me as a hypocrite because I put so much emphasis on living free, yet I have a hard time letting things go, and not caring. But yesterday I decided to take a new look at what It even means to say you want to "live free".
To me, it just means to be completely true to yourself, and do what feels best to you. Whatever that may be in that particular time of your life. It doesn't mean quit your job, ditch your boyfriend/husband, and sell all of your possessions because they were tying you down. Well to some people it might. Or at some point it might to you. But generally speaking, it doesn't have to mean, "go off and live like a hippie". You don't have to be careless, and unemotional to be free. Freedom is whatever you want it to be.


Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Fourth of July


Started off the day at work. Yep, that's what happens when you work at an event center. 

At least I got to enjoy a mini BBQ while I was there. 

Came home and napped for a minute with the Tundra

When Greg finally got his butt in gear, we ran over to U-Swirl and got some yogurt. We were already running super late, but Derek had to have his yogurt. Then we headed down to P town. 
Did I mention that Derek had this genius idea of parking way over on the South end of campus so we could beat traffic after. It actually worked like a charm, but required us to walk so freaking far to get to the stadium. 
 Side note: You gotta love Derek's model shot!

Finally, after losing my precious sour patch kids at the gate, we were in. About 2 seconds after this photo we heard the jets go across. We sprinted out! I barely saw them as they left the stadium. We were pretty sad about that. 
Dancers and smoke from the guns firing
We had a super awesome sunset too

Beach Boys!!


Love this shot

 A lot of dancing occurred 




Oh Derek...

Stadium of FIRE Baby!
Ha ha Shirley!
50th Anniversary of James Bond
The first couple firework shows were played to old Bond songs. Pretty Epic. Except they didn't play Carly's - "Nobody Does it Better"! What the heck! That's without a doubt the best one ever!






I was incredibly impressed by the Stadium of Fire show! I loved all of it. The Beach Boys were incredible! They played all the good songs! A couple people from American Idol played and they were pretty awesome too. One was country, so Derek and Greg did not enjoy, but the rest of us did. Derek and Greg were much too encompassed with the news of Nash trading to the Lakers to pay attention to anything anyway. 
The firework show seemed to go on forever. In a good way. We kept thinking it was the finale, and then it would start again. The actual finale was amazing! The last BOOM actually scared me pretty bad. I thought something malfunctioned, and the stadium blew up. It was sincerely the loudest boom I've ever heard. It shook the stadium. Derek and Greg were all jazzed! Boys love loud noises.
All in all, it was a pretty good fourth considering my beloved tradition of going to the beach all day for the Fourth.  I still don't know if anything will ever beat the long hot days spent in Oceanside, swimming, eating fried chicken and licorice, riding the carnival rides, and getting lost in the mass of people on the sand. Maybe someday Derek and I will be able to start that tradition up again. 





That's life


Sometimes you're just so sure this person is the Pinky to your Brain, the Chole to your Zoey, the kettle to your corn, the Cyndi to your Lauper, the blonde to your brunette, the Practical to your Magic, the Ethel to your Lucy, the Dairy to your Queen, and the Brown butter to your Mazithera cheese. Sometimes you find out they're just not. That's life, I guess.

and...

Sometimes you just know that person is the silver to your gold, the partner to your travels, the Marshmallow to your Lilypad, the Eisenstein to your Bowie, the Ross to your Rachel, the Jeremy (Vince) to your John (Owen), the buffalo sauce to your ranch, the smile to your Sami, the spicy to your sweet, the tech geek to your fashion geek, the Ricky to your Lucy, the Claussen to your dill, the first every to your first thing, the Marlon to your Stella, the home where your heart is. Sometimes they tell you, they're just not anymore.

Twice in a month. This is not my year, apparently. 

Monday, July 9, 2012

Riverton Carnival


Took a mini evening trip to the Riverton Carnival to get the parents out of the house ;)
I was actually pretty surprise at the size of this carnival for such a small town as Riverton. We watched a little jazz band play, saw a couple minutes of the movie playing in the park (Happy Feet), and just walked around the carnival. It was really crowded full of teenagers, so I actually felt kind of bad about bringing Derek's parents to such a mad house. Got some pretty pictures though. I love pictures of carnivals!














Thursday, July 5, 2012

Chang Celebration




Yep, the birthday celebrations are not over yet. 
Cute Derek had another little surprise up his sleeve for Monday after we got back from our Lava Hot Springs Getaway. We went to work like usual, and then Derek text, "After work, hurry home and make yourself pretty okay?"
That usually means that were going on a date. So I came home and got a little dressed up, then waited. 
Someone knocked on the door. It's Shara. She awkwardly makes up some random excuse to why she is here. We chat and wait. 
Another knock on the door. It's Tash. She just pretends that she stopped by to give me a gift. I open the Victoria Secrets bag, knowing it's not lingerie. She always uses random bags. 
Another knock on the door. It's Cole. He acts calm and cool. No biggie. Just stopping by. Poor Cole is dead tired, and of course, super full because he over ate so bad. Stupid Cole, we're probably going out to dinner. 
At this point, I'm poking at Derek about what we’re doing and why we're just sitting on the couch still. 
Wait what? Another knock on the door? It's Ryan, our cool neighbor friend. Now it's time to go. We all hop on TRAX and head toward Main St. 
We end up at, wait for it.... P.F. Chang's! I had never been there, and people just rave about it all the time. Derek is not the biggest Chinese food fan, so we just never got around to it. Well I guess all my whining finally got to him. It pays off girls!
So we go in and sit down at our table for 12. We only have 6 people. So I'm like, "oh go ahead and take the other table and chairs away." Tash had to chime in and say we will have 12 people. What? There are more people coming? At this point, it is sinking in. Derek planned a surprise party for me. What a sweetheart. Seriously, after the whole weekend thing and all the cute little gifts. I don't deserve any more birthday stuff. But I’ll take it!
Finally, Devin, Candace, Brady, and Missy show up. Adnan with his fast, snazzy car and Emina in her high heels strut in. Andrew and Kristen claimed they were just stopping by after the soft ball game, but ended up staying for dinner. Cole only ordered edamame on account of his super full stomach, but we forced him to try everything. It's not hard to convince Cole to eat more. Tiny Shara sat Indian style next to me, and ordered the spicy caramelized mango chicken.  She's such a Hawaiian girl. Ryan got the seared Ahi tuna. It's quite the fancy looking little dish. Everyone tried a little piece, even, Derek and Shara, the fish haters. Tash got our favorite Orange Peel Chicken. Derek and I went all out and got the dinner for two. It includes two soups, an appetizer(lettuce wraps!), two entrees, and two mini desserts. Like usual, Derek got the great wall of chocolate, and I got the dreamy lemon mousse chiffon something or other. 
Afterwards, we all split up so each group with a car could take two of us that didn't. TRAX was closed by this time and we were too stuffed to walk. 
I really had an amazing time, and P.F. Chang's really lived up to its hype. I already want to go again. Derek admitted that he thought it was pretty great as well. 


I will call it my Little Buffalo Island



 On our way home from Lava Hot Springs last weekend, Derek and I stopped by the Great Salt Lake and went out to Antelope Island. We hadn't been there before and it's something that has been on our bucket list.  You really only hear bad things about the Great Salt Lake but we really just wanted to see for ourselves.

The causeway


Before I explain this picture I just want to mention that before we came out to the island we saw on the website that there was a warning about the "out of control" gnat problem they have been having. So Derek called and the lady said it was taken care of and we could go out there and have a good time.
The second we stepped out of the car, we were totally bugged with gnats. So we went down to the beach and it got worse, and worse, and horribly worse. This is right about the time I started losing my cool. I'm not exactly proud of how I handled the situation, but seriously... I cannot handle one bug! If they start coming in the masses, I'm getting the hell out of there!
The worst of it had not even shown its face yet. Do you see that line of dark sand around the water? It's not sand! It's gnats! A blanket of gnats!

Check out this poor guy's stuff.
This is precisely why I was running around the whole time. The second you sit still they cover you. 
Of course, Derek is not really bugged at all. He's such a man. After begging me to "just go out once, real quick, so we could see if we float," he gave up and decided to run out first.
Look close. You can see the gnats rising on either side of him. EEH! 

Derek eventually got his way, and talked me into running out past the gnats to the water. It actually wasn't as bad as I worked it up to be. Although I did have a hard time stopping. Derek said he thought I was just going to run forever. 
My victory jump! Fear conqueror. That's what I am!
Once we got past the shock of the whole thing, 12 year old, Destruction Derek came out to play.  It's pretty disgusting/awesome how you can see them all scattering as he steps by them. 


Antelope! That is all we saw of them, and frankly, they are quite boring
Look at my little Buffalo! He's adorable!
Huge!
Cutie

Yes, I am horrible and I ate a Buffalo Burger. I can love them, and the way they taste. It's not a crime!