Roxy

We have some big news!!!

We LOVE our little girl! She's a Chessie-Lab (Chesapeake Bay Retriever/Labrador Retriever). Our baby is 7 weeks old and loves to sleep on our shoes, chase us up and down the driveway, and snuggle - aka steal my pillow at night. She's our new best pal!

And...we're renting a little house with a yard that will be all ours in January! This is all I wanted for Christmas and more. We've waited a long time to be able to add a doggie to our family.

Black Thursday

Were you aware that Black Friday begins a day earlier now? We weren't. We arrived at Walmart at 9 p.m. on Thursday evening to purchase our XBox 360 & Kinect package. We had planned to chat and wait in line until midnight. But -- we made it to the checkout within 45 minutes of our arrival and were in and out with Brad's Christmas present. Who knew the sale actually began at 10 p.m.?

Anyway, I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving! Ours was beautiful. The weather was short-sleeve permitting with no sign of snow. In the morning we played football at a ward Turkey Bowl. (I always have to check myself on that word because I find myself writing "bowel" which probably also occurred after Thanksgiving dinner...but anyway.)

One of our couple friends from church invited us over for a home-cooked meal. Kendra made cute pine-cone name tags for all of us and strung up white lights. It was so cute! We all went around the table and said things we were grateful for and stuffed our faces. I love Thanksgiving :)

I have been missing my family like crazy though.

1. I LOVE my new boots! Sometimes I wear them around the house. Other times I look at them as they sit ruggedly and proudly on my floor. The insides are fluffy and comfortable and I think they're so cute! Plus they don't have to be worn the same way every time. They can be tied loosely or tightly, worn with leg warmers or tall socks, over or under jeans, with skirts, and etc.

(Brad's apple pie and lattice-decorating skills)


2. Brad got some new boots too. I am equally in love with them, as is he. I'll post a picture of his new guys later. I'm not sure why but I find it almost more enjoyable to shop for men's clothing.

3. Mom, Won and Bud are coming out here in April!!! I cannot wait - it seems almost too far away to start counting down. They're going to visit us in Idaho and we'll all go to Yellowstone. Then we're driving down to stay with Britt and Pat!

4. I get tomorrow off work! Brad and I are going to have Thanksgiving dinner with some friends from church and then brave the chaotic after-midnight hours of Black Friday.

5. I think I'd be content eating mint Oreos for Thanksgiving dinner. They are so tasty.

6. There is another piece of exciting news but I think I'll leave that for another post.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

A bipolar post.

Honestly I've been feeling depressed this week. I've been yelled at or snapped at by three unfriendly co-workers over the past week and a half. My Christmas account brings tension, stress, the "f" word (not by me but thanks for wondering), and everything but the jingle-jolly Christmas cheer and joy that is supposed to accompany the holiday season revolving around the Savior. And this may not sound like a big deal or something to cry over (even though I have), but I want a dog so bad. I've wanted one ever since we got married 2.5 years ago. We've never been able to have one and we are having the HARDEST time finding a new apartment to move into that will allow pets. Still looking though.

So in an effort to make myself feel better I am creating a list of things I am grateful for today:

-My husband and absolute best friend! I love coming home and having my day do a 180.
-Heavenly Father and that He listens to my prayers
-Jesus Christ and the comfort I feel through His infinite Atonement
-The comfort and guidance of the Holy Ghost
-My wonderful family! (Parents, stepparents, siblings (and step), in-laws, grandparents, nieces and nephew, and my best friends
-Playing with the dogs and holding kittens at the animal shelter, and how doggies can put a smile on anyone's face.
-Brad's sweet new boots that we got for a steal at Ross!
-My cute, stylish boots from F21 that are scheduled to be delivered on Thursday!
-The pink sunset I drove home in this evening
-Running and tennis
-Good music that gives me chills
-My friends at work who I enjoy being around everyday
-Colors - especially shades of blue, green and orange!

We've got spirit, yes we do!

We LOVE Halloween! Call me politically incorrect but I quite enjoyed our costumes this year. I'm really into the whole couples costume thing, and we plan to dress up every year for forever. I wanted to share a few photos of our past Halloween costumes so here they are starting from 2011, going down to 2008.

My Wedding Dress

A couple months ago I did something crazy. No, I didn't go bungee jumping or win a hot dog eating contest. It was more of a domestic type of crazy. Are you ready? Don't look ahead! .......I cut up my wedding dress.

First I had to unpick all the tucks.

And then do some cutting.

And pinning to make it into a pencil skirt.

I need to post some better pictures of the finished outcome, but here it is! I love the black lace on the sleeves and pleats on the side of the skirt.

At first my biggest fear wasn't messing up, but changing something so sentimental. But Brad brought up the point that it could either be sentimental hanging in a bag or on me! I agree.

I remind myself of a funny dude Brad read an article about. If you have a minute, check out My Ex Wife's Wedding Dress. This guy's wife left her wedding dress behind after they split. He came up with several innovative ways to put it to use, and even made a funny book about it with hilarious photos.

Don't worry! I've put mine to good use already too! Aside from my pretty new dress, I also used some scraps to complete my mummy costume for the Midnight 5K Halloween Costume run that we did with Jeff and Sam! (There are PLENTY of scraps.) I also want to use the rest of it to make my baby girl's blessing dress. I think that would be really special.

Wafflehead!

Often, Brad and I can get pretty competitive. We have an on-going bets for tickles. (It can be applied to anything - sports, card games, random facts...) Consenting to being tortured is a rough defeat so when we ante up with tickle seconds, things can get a little cutthroat. Our most recent debate was about whether or not there was such a thing as a waffle cereal.

During our grocery shopping trip tonight I introduced Brad to Waffle Crisp! (And won our argument.)

Autumn - the new summer

OK I'm in heaven. Autumn is perfection and I thank my Father in Heaven for giving us such a beautiful world to live in. I'm not ready for my simple autumn weekend to end.

Saturday morning I woke up early (well earlier than I normally would) and grabbed some donuts from a little shop on our street for my studious husband and I. They didn't have pumpkin but apple spice still provided the taste of the season I was craving. The rest of the weekend was spent competing in tennis, playing cards (with bets), watching Rio and hunting for funny YouTube videos. Here's my favorite.

The happiest part of the weekend, though, was spoiling our five senses with Autumness.

Our big window has given us a daily view of the bright grass and changing leaves (which I'm especially grateful for, considering we were ambushed by snow last week). Today we sat on our couch and watched/listened to a thunderstorm. It only lasted five minutes but still... Afterwards, we took a walk in the rain and played with a cat we found.

If only this weekend could last a few more days. I could do without the ingrown eyelash that's been irritating my right eye though. Has anyone else ever had an ingrown eyelash? I can't get it out and I don't know what else to try! I read that you can go to the doctor to have it removed but that's a couple hundred dollars...Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Fieldtrip

October 6th - Brad went on a field trip today for his natural disasters class. They took a bus tour to check out a couple of historical spots in Eastern Idaho that were ravaged by natural disasters - one was from the Teton Dam Flood and the other was from a landslide.

And here's the view from his 8-hour field trip on this glorious fall day!

Biannual Boost

Last weekend we drove to Utah to stay with Brat (Britt and Pat's celebrity name) and see Ashley! She planned a mid-semester vacation and came out all the way from Georgia. We also spent time with the Terry family!

Saturday morning we soaked in the first session of General Conference LIVE!
I love this bi-annual spiritual recharge! I feel like our testimonies can continually grow from personal study and nurturing our relationship with the Lord, but it also helps to have an external boost. What better way to grow spiritually than praising our Father and Savior through music and listening to inspired leaders?

Here are my favorite highlights from GC:

1. President Monson wasn't sitting up on the stand when conference began so I wasn't expecting to see him during the first session. Then out of the blue, he popped up at the pulpit and said "Hello!" It just caught me off-guard. He's always making me laugh and I love hearing his testimony.

2. Finding out about the new temples! Especially Paris, the Congo and the new Provo Tabernacle temple. Brad and I went to church a few times in the old Provo Tabernacle! Last winter, the building caught on fire and was almost destroyed. You can see what the new temple will look like and read a miracle story about the Tabernacle here.

3. President Eyring's talk. I was touched hearing about the commencement speech he gave at a university (not sure which one.) When the ceremony director realized that as an apostle for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints his calling and purpose is to witness of Jesus Christ, she called him and said that he "wouldn't be able to perform his duty during the commencement speech." In an effort to respect all beliefs, including students who didn't believe in a Savior, the director didn't want Pres. Eyring to speak of Christ. He was so emotional about not being able to talk about our Savior during his speech. He cried as he shared this experience. Although he didn't blatantly bear his testimony during his commencement speech, he spoke of serving and humanitarian work and quickly (but respectfully) referenced that was how Jesus lived his life.






To counteract the spiritual side of the weekend, we also enjoyed ourselves (is that the right word, sis?) at a haunted house. The Haunted Forest in American Fork is by far the BEST I've ever been to. We spent over an hour screaming and sprinting our way through the dark, foresty trail.

Oh, and here's our Halloween costume reveal: We're going to be....Asian tourists! (Just because I feel the need to: I love Asians.) Half of my family is Asian. We just saw several fellow cruise-goers with giant cameras and Hello Kitty shirts and thought that it would be a fun costume idea!

Bottom Dweller

Today at work on of my clients calls me and asks for a favor. I'm new to this account so I'm not sure if we can fulfill her request. So, I go to the CEO to double check. He's also unsure, so he calls someone else to check.

The other person says, "No we don't do that. I'm surprised she asked you."
CEO: "She didn't ask me. She asked Tiffani."
The other person (who didn't know I was on the call): "Wow, she's going way down on the totem pole!"

Turquoise

I love colors! I've been through several favorites - lime green as a pre-teen and pink during high school. I distinctly remember my goal of packing ONLY pink items of clothing for a week-long family vacation.

For the past six years or so, green has been my IT color. Though still a favorite, and a color that makes me smile, green has been demoted to my second favorite color (for now anyway.)I love the brightness of turquoise. It's a fresh color that makes me feel excited. It's the color of Heavenly Father's beautiful seas, and the color of most of my new possessions.

The last few things I've purchased have all been turquoise - like a kid who always wants to chew their favorite color of bubble gum, I'm like a magnet to anything turquoise in the store. Check out this photo of my new running shoes, beach towel, and tennis racket (his name's Otto). All turquoise! The photos are a little dark but my new bathing suit is also this stunning shade.





Interested in a little color psychology? This link goes into quite a bit of detail about several colors.

Here's what it said about mine: "If turquoise is your favorite color your deepest need is to create emotional balance in your life, to be able to express your hopes and dreams no matter how idealistic they may be and to make your own way in the world under your own terms...A combination of blue and a small amount of yellow, turquoise fits in on the color scale between green and blue. It radiates the peace, calm and tranquility of blue and the balance and growth of green with the uplifting energy of yellow"

Some-More

The word "Nachos" stuck around when a few city boys left their delectable cheese/chips snack on the table and some ruffians tried to yoink it. "Hey, that's not'cho's!"

And everyone knows how Smore's got its name. I think that the word summer got its name the same exact way. Everyone just wants some more!

Growing up, my favorite season was autumn. If we lived in Georgia this would probably still be the case. The cozy hues of orange, yellow, red and brown, topped with the scent of burning leaves and cinnamon spice is just tantalizing. But, since we live in Idaho, summer is by far, without any hesitation, my favorite season.

I love being able to walk around barefoot on my tile. What, you do that all year round? I love going to the animal shelter and taking the dogs on walks. I know I'm a lab person but I have fallen in love with a Great Dane named Moose. Here's a picture of how cute Great Danes are! (that's the number one thing on my Christmas list right now.)



I love wearing flip-flops everyday. Playing tennis until 9 p.m. is also wonderful. And running on a treadmill loses everyday to running around the track at a lovely park. Rexburg has two that we love. So because of these outdoor sports I guess another great thing about summer is feeling thin. (I'm not up in the gym working on my fitness, being Fergalicious.)

Additional wonderful things about summer are cuter clothes, gorgeous flowers and trees, the sunshine on my skin, beach vacations, busy sidewalks in the evenings, and warm, happy weather.





I'm thankful to have enjoyed a safe, beautiful summer. Now it's on to autumn time...

Hardy-Har!

Wow, has it really been two months since I posted? That's a long time. Next post I'll include some photos of our summer vacations, but for now, a post about the best medicine: laughter. A few weeks ago my sister in law asked me if I could remember the hardest I have ever laughed. So thank you, Samantha, for the inspiration for this post. (This story isn’t the hardest I’ve laughed in my life, but it takes first place for this week for sure…) Here it goes:

We walked into the gym hand-in-hand. I recognized a few people from the spring competitive league, but there were mostly new faces. We sat down and the recreational sports director got started. The meeting was like a high school test review -- drab, really, because the director had given the same schpeel on sportsmanship to 17 other groups of college kids already today.

Despite his monotone voice, I still felt hyped about the upcoming tennis season. A few minutes later we were trudging through a PowerPoint on dress codes and scheduling. My boredom level and tiredness kicked in. When it came time for questions, we were sitting there quietly awaiting our release so Brad could get started on his chemistry homework. Several legitimate questions were answered.
And then… a hand on the other side of the room went up. “Are we going to be playing against each other?” (Since you usually stand on one side of the net and hit the ball to an empty court...)

The girl’s question must not have struck the director the way it did me because he kept a straight face as he answered “Yes.”

I inhaled deeply, trying to prevent a loud outburst of laughter. Knowing my limits, I counted to Three Mississippi before turning to Brad to mouth “who else would we play?...” I should have abstained a second or two longer because when I saw the line on his face grow from one inch to five in a couple of seconds, it was over.

We stared at each other with ridiculous smiles for a millisecond as we tried to be stronger than our bodies. A few audible peeps of laughter (and a couple of tears) escaped my body, but I was fighting to keep it internal. Looking at me wasn’t helping so Brad hunched completely over and covered his face as his whole body shook in silent laughter. No longer blocked by his shoulders, there was nowhere to hide the wetness dripping down my face.

“I have to go,” I whispered.

I speed-walked out of the gym and busted into loud, silly laughter in the hallway. We continued to laugh during the entire walk home and I am smiling right now as I type this. Looking back maybe she was wondering if we were going to play another school...but that's not how it came out. We laughed our heads off for a long time afterward. The whole situation just tickled my funny bone.

So there you have it!

PDA - Pulpit Declarations of Affirmation

Today I've been pondering deep questions like: Have you ever noticed that our tolerance levels for PDA vary A LOT?

Personally, one of the forms of PDA I find the most humorous is what I call "pulpit declarations of affirmation." This is a Tom Cruise-style announcement given during fast and testimony meeting. I'm sure ya'll know what I'm talking about. It sounds something like: "I'd like to bear my testimony and let you know how wonderful my beautiful wife is. Every day I wake up and wonder how I ended up with her. I'm thankful for the gospel, and most importantly I love my wife." I get the giggles in church whenever this happens. (Today...)

Another one that made me laugh was our neighbors who taped up gushy love letters on the front door of their apartment almost weekly. I'm not sure why they didn't at least put them in envelopes. Maybe they just wanted everyone to know how in love they were?

Before I get too caught up (no worries) I've also considered that others may find me and Brad's actions a little too "PDA" sometimes. I've been told that our traditional after-prayer peck can be a little nauseating. Makes sense. But I don't want to break our family tradition just because other people might be around when we say a meal prayer.

I just think it's interesting how the acronym PDA is pretty much used universally in a negative way. BUT we all are guilty of it in some form. We probably don't know it, but someone somewhere is gagging at our romantic spectacles, whatever they may be.

I realize I can't expect some people to refrain from declaring their love for their spouse during testimony meeting just because I consider it "too PDA." (Plus it's funny so I don't really mind.)And for all I know people might think my posting cutesy pictures of me and Bradio on Facebook is too much. (Oops, is using his nickname in public too PDA?)

Anyways just my thoughts for today on a subject that made me laugh...And I'm curious if my few blogger friends want to share...what do you think is too PDA?

Have a great Sunday! I'm going to go snuggle up with Bradio now ;) haha.

Ants and Beatles

Would you rather see ants or beatles? Me? Beatles.


1. BEATLES
1964...The Tribute, an amazing Beatles Tribute group, was scheduled to come to BYU-I this weekend. Brad and I didn't buy tickets because we had an intramural tennis thing. But, we ended up with time to spare so we ran over (literally) to see if we could purchase tickets at the door. A sweet lady who was ushering said she had two extra tickets that her family no longer needed. So, we had five minutes to change and be back for the amazing show!






2. ANTS
As I am lying in bed typing this, I can see an ant crawling on our kitchen tile. But it's not alone. When we got home from church, there was a line of ants marching in from a crack near the heater. Sick. But even more horrible than having unwanted guests on the floor is having to kill them.

When I noticed them, I began smacking the ants with my shoe because I figured that would be the fastest death for the critters. But some of them kept wiggling their legs even after the first hard smash. I probably looked silly smashing each one five times, but I really didn't want any of them to suffer so I was trying to make sure they were dead. This is the reason I hate fishing (worms). I don't like inflicting pain on anyone/thing. Hopefully we can figure out a solution pretty soon so we can get rid of them and I won't have to kill them.

Bring Spring!

It may not feel like Spring outside, but it does in our apartment! We went with gray, black and white as our base colors and accented in green and yellow. I still want to throw in some orange but it's a continual process. The pops of bright, springy hues make me feel happy, and when our apartment is clean and our fruity candle is lit, there aren't many places I'd rather be.