Miranda Lambert Concert!!!

Heather and I went with her friend Kristen to the Miranda Lambert concert on March 16th! We had a blast! I met up with them after work and we had dinner at Applebees at the Gateway. Before the concert started we took a couple pictures:

Jerrod Neimann and Chris Young opened for Miranda. I really liked Chris Young! Here's a pic of him on stage!

Miranda finally came on stage and she was amazing! she really puts on a good show! She had a pink acoustic guitar, a pink microphone and pink ear pieces! :) Her best line was when she introducing her song, Baggage Claim. She said, "I wrote this song in a state of being pissed off. Now that I'm married I really now how it feels to be pissed off!"

My favorite song of hers is The House That Built Me:

One of her best songs she sang was her newest single, Over You. So beautiful! She even did a cover of You and I by Lady Gaga. awesome! Her last song before her encore was White Liar!

We're glad we stayed for her encore because she brought out Jerrod and Chris for her last song of the night! She said it's for us girls! She's married, but she's not blind! hehe

It sure was a fun night and I hope I can go to another concert soon! Too bad we didn't get tickets for Kelly Clarkson's concert on march 20th! Oh well!

My spontaneous trip to Vegas

This past weekend I was in Las Vegas for a total of 24 hours. My coworker/friend, Amber mentioned at lunch last Friday how she wanted to go to Vegas so she could lay out by the pool. I thought it was just wishful thinking. She asked me that afternoon if I wanted to go with her and I'm like she's crazy, I can't just go to Vegas tomorrow?! I talked her out of it saying we could go another weekend. On the drive home I realized I didn't have anything going on this weekend and after talking with Heather, she said just go! I got a hold of Amber we made our fun weekend in Vegas happen!

Amber picked me up early Saturday morning and we started our drive to Las Vegas! We made a stop for lunch in St. George and ate at In & Out. It was my first time eating there. Yummy! :) We got into Vegas around 1:30 and checked into the JW Marriott Resort! (Amber got an awesome deal). After checking into our awesome room we changed into our swimming suits and headed to the pool to lay out! It was 77 degrees (about 40 degrees warmer than SLC)!

After the pool we took our own tour of the resort. You wouldn't even need to leave the resort! They have a casino, restaurants, shops, a spa and a pool! But we did leave for the evening... we went to the strip! After driving up and down the strip, we parked at the Belagio and went inside. Here are a few pics and a video!
















We checked out Ceaser's palace too and had dinner at Planet Hollywood! By this time both of us were very tired! We did do some more exploring on the strip but we were back in our room by 10! It's insane the variety of people you see on the strip!

The next morning we had breakfast brought up to our room! So nice! Yes, it was kinda pricey but hey we were pampering ourselves this weekend! After breakfast, I took some pictures of the view from our balcony (we were on the 6th floor) and a video of our room:



It was sad to have to leave our resort. We brought our luggage to the front of the hotel and had the valet get our car! hehe Our next stop was the Premium Outlet Mall! It was fun looking at all the different stores! A lot of things were too expensive, but I did find some jewelery! We ended up leaving Vegas at 1:30 and made the drive back to Salt Lake. It was sad to leave, but it was worth the 24 hours that we were there. We grabbed some food in Beaver, UT and I was home at 8:30. First Boston, then Vegas... where should my next trip with Amber be?

New Hair Cut

I got a haircut today! I've been meaning to for awhile. I ended up getting about 3 1/2 inches cut off!

Super Bowl Craft Time

Heather got an idea from Pinterest of what to do with all your birthday cards, thank you notes, etc. The Saturday before the Superbowl we went to JoAnn Fabrics and got cute scrapbook paper, metal rings and stickers. During the Superbowl we worked on making books with all our cards. Heather was done by halftime, but it took me the entire game to finish. It takes awhile to organize your cards and get an idea how you would like your books done! Heather ended up making one book with two metal rings on the side. I put my cards into two books with one metal ring in the upper left corner. One book was birthday cards and the other was miscellaneous (thank you notes, holidays and graduations). I'm proud of how they turned out! It's nice that I can easily add new cards to these books!

So is there a thing called a craft hangover? By the time I was done with these books my back was killing me, I was getting a terrible headache and I felt dehydrated. I may have forgotten to drink while I was crafting!

Change

Change happens no matter what you do. Just when you think life is going good and you're in a routine, change happens. Right now, change is happening at work... first our manager decided to go on a mission with her husband, then two ladies in my area are switching areas (they've been in my area since I started at missionary travel) , and now my supervisor is on to another job. So... there have been internal job changes plus we are going to hire people from the outside! Now... this change at work is not bad... it's just shaking things up at work which makes work more interesting I guess! this change also means giving missions away and getting new ones. i think i've been saying, "I'm just trying to process these changes" a lot this past week. So as I continue to process these changes, I hope I can see the positive of the changes at work and not the negative!

So... should Heather and I make a change of not watching The Bachelor and instead go to our singles ward's FHE on Monday nights??? hmmm... This month The Bachelor has been winning for how we spend our time on Monday nights. :) Mainly it's because the fhe activity is kinda lame and we're tired from our day at work... and an evening on the couch sounds so much better. and we like watching Ben trying to find love!

Home for Christmas!

I can't believe that I've already been back in Utah for a week. I loved being home with my family for Christmas and New Years. My sisters and I drove home on Dec 23rd. I'm so glad Colorado had snow because I love having a White Christmas! Since Christmas was on Sunday this year, our Christmas Day was different than usual. We did stockings and then had a yummy breakfast before going to sacrament mtg at my parents ward. We came back and opened our presents. We were done by 4:00pm... so weird! After presents we had our yummy Christmas dinner, which we usually have on Christmas Eve. Here are some pictures:

1.) Heather taking a pic of us before Christmas Eve dinner: mom made her yummy potato soup.
2.) the tree on Christmas Eve. Our cat's (Bubbs) favorite spot to sleep was in front of the stove!





1.) My sisters and I always take a pic in our pajamas!

2.) about to go to Church on Christmas Day!



1.) So since Heather and I are roommates we also get to share presents... Heather is wearing the Boston RedSox hat I gave her!
2.) All three of them got a picture of the house taken in the early 1900's! Dad was jealous that mom was able to get such a big picture. :)



1.) Here's the aftermath after all
the presents have been opened!







1.)Heather bought a new car while she was home (a 2010 Hyundai Elantra).
2.)Dad decided that he and mom needed a new car too (a 2010 chevy cruze)!



Here are some other things I did while at home:

1). a game night with my parents neighbors: Deckers
2). wedding reception for Tate McDaniel
3.)watched The Help, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Water for Elephants
4.)Mom and Dad's Christmas party with their Alamosa friends
5.)playing the Wii
6.)relaxing aka doing nothing, sleeping in, staying up late
7.) game night at Grandma's (whit and I played 2 hours of chinese checkers one night w/Grandma)!

For New Years, my parents went to the Meis's to celebrate. My sisters and I stayed at home. We played Just Dance on the Wii and played Whitney's new game: Friends DVD Scene It game. When midnight came, we opened the bubbily aka sparkling grape juice! The pictures we took weren't facebook worthy, but they are blog worthy!

New Years day was the last day at home. My sisters and I went to Whitney's singles ward in the morning. In the afternoon we had a yummy lunch and watched the Broncos lose to Kansas City... we were sure glad that Oakland lost so we could still make the playoffs!

Heather and I followed each other in our cars back to Utah on the 2nd... yeah... we both had to drive the whole 10 hours! yuck! It was hard to say good-bye to the folks and Whitney because it will be a while before I see them again. :(

I hope 2012 will be a good year!

Before Christmas Day Happenings

It's the day after Christmas and I realized I had not given an update on what went on in December leading up to Christmas day!

Heather and I went to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional at the Conference Center on Dec 4th. It's so much to fun to be there live instead of watching it on TV! For one of our FHE's we got to sing Christmas carols in the lobby of Primary Children's hospital and see the lights at Temple Square (well I get to see the lights everyday after work... ).

One of the highlights of December was our cousin, Megan visited us for a few days. It was fun to get to know her better and we hope it won't be too long before we see her again! With Megan in SLC, it gave us a chance to see more of Katelyn, Kim and Aunt Merrie! We had a pizza and baked sugar cookies one night, had lunch at Charlie Chow's another day and then a dinner and played games on another night! Heather and I took Megan to an ugly sweater party a girl in our ward hosted on the 10th. Luckily Aunt Merrie had sweaters we could use!

On Dec 14, Heather and I had our Relief Society Christmas Party. Our RS Presidency went all out with wonderful decorations, dinner and program. Heather and I even participated in the program by performing a duet on the piano (Carol of the Bells).

On Dec 15, my office had our Christmas party aka Fat Day. The theme was the North Pole and my area was decorated as Mrs Claus' Kitchen and we were in charge of the sides for lunch. Basically we ate and talked all day so hardly any work got done besides answering phones! The first pic is me with the ladies I work with in my area with our awesome decorations on Fat Day. The second pic was taken in front of the tree in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. We sent the picture to all the missions we work with!

A second highlight was when Dad and Whitney drove out to visit us! Dad stayed for a couple days and Whit stayed till Heather and I drove home for Christmas. While dad was here we showed them two awesome Christmas light displays. One was in Taylorsville where a whole neighborhood did 'Twas the night before Christmas and one in Murray where this house had the lights set to music. On Saturday the 17th the 4 of us went Christmas shopping for Mom. We found the perfect ring at J.C. Penny! We also got her a cute coat! We had lunch with Aunt Merrie and her family at Red Robin. That night we went to the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas Concert! Jane Seymour was the narrator and Nathan Gunn was the singer... we really, really enjoyed it and so glad we got tickets this year! We also walked around temple square with the hundreds of other people after the Concert





















On Dec 20th my sisters and I went to see the Nutcracker performed by Ballet West at the Capitol Theater. It was soooo good! I loved seeing Whitney's excitement. She said it was the best performance of Nutcracker she has ever seen. I'm so glad Whitney was able to spend a week with me and Heather in Salt Lake!










The 3 of us drove home to La Jara Colorado on the 23rd and we had a wonderful Christmas with our family, but more on that later!