~Fall is Here~

This time of year is bittersweet for me. There are so many things I love about fall, but the realization that summer is over, until next year, is pretty hard for me to accept. But, the best way to cope, is just embrace it. So that is what I am trying to do. I love the smell of fall, the beautiful colors on the trees, leaving my windows open & enjoying the cool nights. And, I also love the clothing for fall. But, all this talk just makes me want more fall apparel. So many cute styles for this time of year, I love it.

Part of fall, of course, also means, football! Last night I was able to go the the Utah vs. USC game. It was a lot of fun. The Utes lost, but to be honest, I've never been much of a Utes fan anyways. So my heart was not at all broken by the loss. (But I did feel bad for my date, his heart was a bit broken by it). Good thing life goes on, right? :) Well with last nights game, comes tonight's game. But this game is one I am a bit more interested in. It's the Cougs & Aggies going at it. 

I've gotta say, I don't know who I really want to win. The Aggies are my childhood team! I grew up watching them & supporting them. But, part of me is attached to BYU, mainly just from living down in Salt Lake. I felt like I had to choose between the Utes & BYU. Well, I chose BYU when I moved here & I've stuck with my decision. Since I went to BYU-Idaho, it makes sense, right? Okay, well maybe not, but I'm justifying it. :)  I'm sitting here watching the game & I am finding myself cheering for both teams. Haha, I am a terrible fan. Meh, oh well.

This weekend is going to be great. Tomorrow, I am going to the morning session of conference with my old college pal, Brittany. I am really looking forward to hearing from the Prophet, Apostles, & leaders of the church.

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend.

.:.July & then some.:.

Well I am back. We won't go into my lack of posts & absence from the blog, because that will take too long.  What matters now is that I am back, and here to share the most recent adventures of my life. :)

We'll start with July. I moved. My roommate, Ange, found a great house online, and it ended up being perfect. We moved in at the beginning of the month & have loved every minute since! It's amazing the feeling a house gives you. So nice not having to worry about being too noisy for the upstairs neighbors. I'll just say, we all really like it. :) Here are a few pictures to give you an idea.

Our house!

The backyard is huge, and so nice. 

{The landlord has someone come every week to take care of the lawn, we don't complain.} 

Here are a few pictures from my room and the front/dining rooms. We have tons of space & are still trying to figure out how to fill it best.

I didn't add any pictures of the downstairs yet, because it is still a mess. I live with three other girls, two of which are teachers. School is starting soon and the basement has been turned into a work room for them. :) There are two bedrooms & a bathroom upstairs, and the basement is the same. It feels so nice to have room and a place to sit & talk, and still not be in the way of the others.

That was the beginning of July. During July I of course celebrated Independence Day with friends & family. Such a great holiday, and makes me so grateful that I live in a free country. Too often I forget how lucky I am.

Over the weekend of the 24th, my roommates & I skipped town and headed to Denver, CO. We packed our bags in the car and made the 8 hour + drive after work on Friday night. We arrived a little before 4:00am Saturday morning. (Long drive, but worth it.) Saturday was the big day. The reason we made the drive. We had tickets to see The Brothers of the Sun Tour. Do you know who that involves? Let me tell you. Only the best looking (in my opinion) and two of the best country artists in my music collection. Country has not always been in my collection, so I'm sure someone could argue there are better artists out there. Anywho... the concert was Kenny Chesney & Tim McGraw. Oh boy, was it the greatest! I have seen Tim in concert, last summer in Salt Lake. So, I knew I enjoyed him & he could put on an entertaining show. As for Kenny, I'd never seen him, but had heard great things about his concerts. Well, he did NOT disappoint.  That man knows how to put on a good show and entertain his audience! This concert was a very close competitor to Lady Antebellum! I loved both, and couldn't choose which was better.

Ange, Britt, Alisa, & me

 Sportin' our cowboy boots.

Timmy!

Waiting for Kenny to come out.

 Kenny & Tim

Great minds think alike, right?

Another amazing adventure with my great friends.

As for August. I am done teaching in Farmington! Yay!! No more driving over an hour a day! I will have my life back and not be spending it in the car on the freeway. I am very excited about it if you can't tell. I have had this past week off from work and start back on Monday. Normally, we have two weeks of training, but I guess they had some sense knocked into them and let the returning teachers have a week off and only do one week of training. I love it. My week hasn't been all that exciting though. On Tuesday I went home to see Ma & Pa and had a dentist appointment. It was not the most fun. I had to have a small surgery in my mouth, which has led me to feeling nauseous & dizzy since. Probably due to the fact I can't eat a lot, but still have to take medication. So much fun. But, on the positive side, I think I am on the mend. I have been feeling pretty close to normal today, which is nice. 

Well, back to school on Monday. I am excited and nervous for the new campus and new people.  But like I said, the commute will be so much better. Instead of driving an hour a day, I will probably only be driving 20 minutes a day. I'll take it. :)

Well, until next time. Who knows when that will be. But I'll leave you with a little treat from my mom. She doesn't know I took this picture, so if she & my dad read this post it will be a surprise. :) SURPRISE MOM. Love you!!

 Sleepy Momma

.the month of {love}.

i can't believe that february is over in just two more days. how is it already march 2012?! i'll just give a brief update on the months events.

on 2.4.12 i spent the evening in park city, more specifically at deer valley resort, watching the olympic moguls. i went up with alisa and ange, and a bunch of people from salt lake. after the moguls, us girls went to main street pizza for some yummy dinner. delicious. we ended the night hanging out at the montage hotel. it's this really ritzy place where their cheapest room goes for over $800/night, and we just hung out and drank water. i think they loved us. :)

this picture was mostly taken for our friend jackie. last year when we went with the girls we took a picture at this exact spot, but with her off to the side. she hates this moose, and all others.

hanging out with big mike at the montage.

last month i went to the wood connection with britt cook and bought this cute little craft for the month of february. don't worry, it took me until about february 9th to finish it. but it looks great in our living room now!

ahh, then came the best night of february to date. {valentines day}. you might be wondering why it was the best day for a single girl. one who has absolutely no prospects at the moment, and nobody to spoil her with love and chocolate on that special day. but don't be fooled. i was spoiled, and i loved every second of it. i went to the lady antebellum concert. ohhhhh man it was the best concert! i loved them before their concert. but i love them 100x more now! they are incredible live, and their music is just fantastic. it also helped having thompson square and darius rucker opening for them. if you haven't listened to lady a very much, i would definitely recommend to start! i love them!!

brittany and i at lady a!

yeah, we may have been at the tippy-top, but it was still a great show!

last, but not least i was able to see my old college roomies, catherine and britt. we spent our night doing something that was a first for all of us. a monster jam. if you don't know what monster jam is, well, it's a monster truck show. yep, that's right. we went with brittany's boyfriend and his buddies. it was actually pretty fun, and i might consider going again sometime!

it's amazing how big these cars/trucks are!

me, britt, and catherine.

(bad photo cause it's from my iPhone, but you get the idea)

i think i am done with february. it has been a good month, but i am ready for the next month.

bring on march!

.:back to normal:.

okay, so maybe not completely back to normal, but close. we were able to come back to our apartment one week after the incident happened. but it wasn't an easy transition back to our normal routines. i'll tell you why.

tuesday night was our last night in the hotel since we had to check out wednesday by 11:00. alisa and i stopped by our apartment after our weekly hot tub club, and NOTHING had been done with the carpet. let me remind you they were supposed to replace the carpet in three rooms. all of which were full of furniture. alisa and i knew it was not going to be an easy task since they would have to take everything out, do the carpet, put everything back in, and repeat two more times. we informed the owner about the lack of work and went on our way back to the hotel.

wednesday after work we were able to come home to our apartment, finally. but that sigh of relief when i said finally was not really a sigh of relief. we came home to a mess. alisa had a small bookshelf in her room that was completely destroyed, and i mean completely. our wall, which had just been fixed, was damaged, and my dresser was dropped and broken in several different places.

i was in shock that this all happened. i could not even imagine how someone could be so careless with another person's belongings. the next day we were on it to get things taken care of. ange called the carpet company and they apologized and said they've never had anything like this happen before. [yeah, that makes us feel better.] but he said he would replace alisa's bookshelf and my dresser. which, is good because my dresser that they destroyed costs $300. by friday they had brought and assembled my new dresser and things in the simpson house were pretty much back to normal.

enough about our crappy apartment though!

great news, karen had her baby! she came 15 days early, on january 19 at 12:47 am and weighed a whopping 9 lbs. 4 oz. they named her mckenna jane. i think she is absolutely beautiful and i love her so much already!

karen, mckenna, and aunt kami

me and baby girl, mckenna

me, mckenna, and kaleb. "say, monster trucks"

a {CRAPPY} situation

This week has been an interesting one. It all started on Tuesday evening, when I got a text from Alisa, saying, "Where are you? I'm freaking out!" I quickly responded when I saw the message and asked what was going on. She responded, "We had a sewage leak in our apartment." Umm, can you say GROSS?!? I was still in Farmington, so there was nothing I could do but think about the damage that had been done, on my drive home. When I got home, the door was open to air out the awful smell that filled the tiny apartment, and this is what I saw. Alisa had covered most of it with some towels, but the little that remained was disgusting. Just thinking about what it was on our floor makes me gag, along with the awful smell!

Alisa called our landlord right away and they sent their emergency maintenance people up. When they got to the apartment they checked out the damage and tried to figure out what was the cause of the leak. One of the guys thought something was probably flushed down the toilet that shouldn't have been. He said he wasn't able to get passed it with his equipment he had. I don't know what it could have been, but we do have a two year old living above us, who is in the process of being potty trained. We think he may well have been playing and flushed a toy down.

They started working right away, and our apartment became unlivable. Not fun. The owner said we would probably have to stay in a hotel while they were fixing it up, but they would have to figure things out in the morning when the office was open. So Tuesday night we got an apartment downtown through Ange's company. It was free, which was great. By Wednesday afternoon I got word from Alisa that the owner had got us a hotel for the next week and to plan on packing my bags when I got home. I got home and did just that.

We are now staying at an extended stay hotel, just a few miles away from our apartment. It has a kitchen in it, which is nice so we aren't having to eat out for every meal. It's not the nicest place I've ever stayed, but it does the job and doesn't have any leakage on the floor. And for that I am grateful.

We have been here since Wednesday night and have the room booked until this Wednesday. They are fixing the drywall and replacing the carpet. Let's hope it is done by Wednesday. If not we will have to find a new hotel, because this one is apparently booked. Oh the joys of life. :)

..december at a glance..

when i started my Christmas break i had great intentions of posting on my blog and updating it. yeah, that never happened. these last two weeks have flown by like a race car, a fast one. i decided that i will just post some photos and tell about some highlights from the month. :)

one of my best friends got married! jackie and justin were married on dec. 9, 2011 in the salt lake temple. i couldn't be happier for them. jackie was my roommate for a little over a month, before she moved home to save money before her big day. i met jackie almost two years ago. she and brittany are besties, and they went on the fun bus to wendover with the big group of people. alisa and i chatted with them at dinner and kind of got to know a little about them. but our friendship really evolved on our road trip to st. george/vegas in may 2010. i tell ya, road trips are the best way to get to know people! anyway, a year and a half later, jackie is a married woman! she looked absolutely gorgeous!

..jenny, britt, jackie, alisa, and me at the reception..

as you know, december comes with parties, lots of parties. and of course, what else is there to do on a weekend in salt lake city, except to attend these fine parties? my friends and i did just that. our friend jenny, (pictured above) and her roommates have a great house for having parties. they threw a great, black, silver, and gold party that was a blast! we got all dolled up in our black & gold and had a great time mingling and dancing.

..me, beth, britt, and alisa before the black, silver, & gold party..

and of course, you can't go through the month of december without attending at least one, or four in my case, ugly sweater parties. tis the season for ugly sweaters, right? yes, yes it is. thanks to alisa's mom for letting us borrow her sweaters. they were a hit. :)

..cheers! grinch punch at the party..

and last, but not least, decorating and getting in the christmas spirit. unfortunately, our apartment is far too small for a tree, but, our friends jake and shad have a great spot. we spent an evening decorating the tree and their living room with christmas lights. it looks amazing, i must say.

..brittany & i decorating the tree..

looking back at the month of december, i am happy to say that is was a great month filled with great friends and lots of laughter! i hope everyone else had a great december as well!