Favorite Snapshots from our Utah trip

Remember that time...

When we all laughed and skated and acted silly,

Well this is that time.

I will always cherish these memories,

The way you whisked me away to winter wonderland,

and how you brought my scarfy and mittens.

You know how I am a wimp in the cold.

I will always remember your graceful moves in the rink,

and your sneaky glances,

looking for friends and family,

surprising me in more ways than one.

I'll always remember our laughs,

and our ninja friends.

I'll always remember your babushka style scarf,

only you.

Oh, how I cherish everything about this night.

Check it.

I am quite fond of this picture.

                                                   

We have some friends.

They are great, and we love them.

One of them, Brooke, is so cute and artsy.

I love her.

The other friend, her husband, is a great great musician.

How can one couple be so blessed, I don't quite understand.

Anyways, they recently made a commercial for Folgers coffee.

Being Mormons, they obviously don't support coffee,

but they do support

the $25,000 grand prize portion of the contest!

Anyways again,

this is their wonderful creation,

that I love:

February Festivities Filled (w) Fun.

This is Carli, my adorable sister.

February is quite the month. 

Tons of action going on here.

Firstly, and most importantly,

My day of birth was celebrated 

(and ground hogs day). 

(Love you Phil.)

This was a big one. 

I left my teen years behind me.

Weird. 

Sometimes I feel like I'm still stuck in 18.

But I'm not, I am now TWENTY.

Two. Zero.

This year was kinda of odd,

This is Me, Logan, and Carli when we first moved here.

Lafayette was hit with a freak snow storm.

I think it was a total of 8 inches.

Decent amount,

Enough to cancel school!

For TWO WHOLE DAYS.

Happy Birthday Me!

This is what we did during the snow storm:

Carli slept over!

That was lots of fun. I love her oh so much. 

We ventured out in the icy snow

to our nearest Family Pantry.

We then cuddled and watched Robin Hood.

Then we fell asleep,

Carli on our couch, Curt and I in our bed.

Carli didn't want to snuggle with us. :(

But we woke up to my BIRTHDAY.

I am reliving it all right now, and I love it.

About to go sledding.

Our cars are stuck.

Can't go anywhere.

What's the first thing we do?

SLEDDING.

with our dear friends. 

The problem was we had no sleds,

neither did any department store in the entire Lafayette county. 

Doesn't make sense. 

They could've made lots of money from us.

Eventually this woman,

Debbie,

from good ol' General Dollar gives us beach tubes

FO FREE.

THANK YOU DEBBIE.

unfortunately beach tubes don't last too long on frozen snow.

We still appreciated the gesture.

So sledding was kind of a fail.

But the day is not over yet. 

We then have a Lord of the Rings Marathon!

Super great. 

we still need to watch the third one actually. 

AND THEN,

Curt and I went to the OB.

we both are big big fans.

After our tummies were very full,

we opened gifts! yesss

Curt surprised me with artsy things,

an eisel and canvas,

and cooking pans!

and this cute bird door hanger. 

I absolutely love it.

Curt, you are the best. 

So that was my birthday.

But just wait...

We actually celebrated it TWO more times. 

One with Curt's fam and yesterday we celebrated it with mine!

It just never ends.

I LOVE have family so close. 

Then we had Winter Fest 2011. Whoop Whoop.

PEFCU knows how to party.

We ate some good food and danced the night away.

We looked cute too. 

And we can't forget Volleyball Night. No siree.

We heart Volleyball.

Especially when our lovely new bff's come.

They make everything more fun.

I just hope February never ends.

Just Kidding.

March you are going to be super fun too.

Jacksonville, we can't wait!

We will teach you how to jerk.

All you out there, wanting to develop your dancing abilities, you can learn from the best. The Isenbargers and the Olsens...or your can invest in the Kinect (which is so awesome and I want one).

But this is the more cost efficient way:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimdavis/sets/72157625434904520/


Anyways. Some of our good friends recently bought the Kinect (trademark) and invited us over to play with it. IT WAS SO AWESOME. There is no remote used because you  ARE the remote. And let me tell you, we were doing the dancing game, and I was sweating like crazy. We did some techno crazy dance, we did some Basement Jaxx, we did not Poker Face, we did some Jerkin. It was intense. And on top of that, we all played volleyball right before -- it was an extreme night. I loved it. 

Now we can say Halloween is partially complete.

 I am not sure if you knew this, but there has been a FIRE BAN in IN. super lame. Because of this, we had to cancel our much anticipated camping trip. even more lame. But our fall break weekend still turned out well. Our plan B was to carve pumpkins! Yes, it's only the first week of October, but we thought it would be appropriate. The festivities included apples (yum), with caramel dip (yummm), more caramel candies, chocolate milk (apparently the official drink of Halloween-says the label), pumpkins, pumpkin seeds, Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack (wonderful), and good people (below).


Curt and I happened to browse the internet for ideas of what to carve exactly. Brooke and Phil had not. They definitely didn't know where to begin. This was their list of ideas:

• dead cat
• bat carrying a dead cat
• a catbat
• monster of some sort
• something terrifying

The list continued. for quite some time. But it was extremely humorous. Finally they decided upon something grand. 

 Curt, being the manly man he is, was in charge of the cutting and dissecting of our lovely pumpkin. He is very good, let me tell you. He cut with such precision and detail. Amazing.

 After the final product.


It was very abstract. And definitely took a minute to see, because of their amazing craftsmanship and talent of course.

CatBat

 Beware of the Bat carrying the DEAD CAT. It's mind bobbling! Terrifying.

Jack Skellington

And this, we reveal to you as our creation!




JACK SKELLINGTON.

Not so terrifying, but definitely cute and halloweeny.

 Now our home looks very festive.

hallway decor

 We have new friends.

playing with our pumpkin friends.

Jefferey.

AND my sister and I made Jefferey, our newest friend. We love him dearly. We thought long and hard about Jefferey. We knew he would be sweet and slightly nerdy. We also didn't have any white, so we used fabric for his teeth, and buttons for his braces! It was so fun.



Words of Wisdom:

With my experiences with Jack and Jefferey-I have come to the conclusion that painting pumpkins are so much easier than carving. No offense Jack.

The wonders of Chicago unleashed.

Curt and I are busy people. We have no time to spare, this is no joke. Despite this, we were able to set an entire day aside for THE TEMPLE. yaaaay. our favorite. It took a daunting 3 hours to get there, mixed in with a TON of traffic -- but it was all worth it for the Lord.
Upon arriving at the temple, two great things happened.
One. Dear family friends (the Zhuels) were down at the Chicago Temple at the same time. The reason for this was because their beautiful daughter, Emily, was able to be sealed to her husband and daughter! AHHH. I cannot tell you how happy I was! They looked sop happy. Barb Zhuel, Emily's mother, has been in my life since I was about 13 years old. She is the sweetest woman I will ever know. I love her. Emily is a few years older than I and was always my Young Women's camp counselor. She is great. So being there, at the very moment they happened to be leaving their sealing, was incredible. Such a blessing. God loves us so much.
Two. Callie (the woman who I wrote a blog about earlier) also entered the temple for her first time! What a glorious day. She was able to do baptisms for the dead and we were so so so SO happy for her. This is another big step closer to our Heavenly Father which opens a door to his everlasting love.

And on top of that, the temple was wonderful for us as a couple. It was my third time and our first time as a couple, on our own. I felt the spirit so strongly. It was incredible.

But wait, there is more. We ended our wonderful evening with one of Curt's favorite restaurants...Portillos! (I have to point out it took us a good fifteen minutes to find the place. Curt knew the general area, but not quite how to get there. Finally, we stopped for directions and made it there before we starved to death.) It was my first time and I loved it! They had pasta and chicago style sandwiches and dogs. Lovely. Delicious. Scrumptious. My stomach was very happy. And the experience was heightened with the presence of two of our dear silly friends, Jamesy Wamesy and Sheree(ka). They are great. love them.

So, next time you are in Chi town-find one of many portillos and go there. You will not regret it. map of Portillos
And to find the one near the Chicago Temple...It is here. Portillos----8832 W Dempster St, Niles, IL