last year's aniversiary

I saw my first moose. Unfortunately it was dead on the side of the road in Parley's canyon. Ryan was so good to me though, when we saw it he actually got off at the next exit, got back on heading the other direction, got off again and pulled over so i could get a better look. Do I have the best husband or what. I got a stick and poked it, and it was pretty nasty. It was giant too! Everything I ever thought a moose would be,...except, of course, that it was dead.
We were in the canyon because for our anniversary Ryan found a cool bed and breakfast in Huntsville (an extremely cute and quaint little town up Ogden canyon) that we stayed in. It was such an awesome little get away but not because of the bed and breakfast per say,.. Ryan secured a pair of beach cruisers and we spent the day riding around and exploring the cutest little town ever amongst the beautiful changing leaves.

I am obsessed with beach cruisers. LOVE them. (never mind that the one I'm riding here looks big enough to eat me) It was SOOOOOOOO much fun. The weather was perfect and everything was beautiful. Such an awesome time and great memories. Ryan did a really good job!

So this picture of Ryan doesn't give a very accurate picture of how cute the town was. I'll have to post again with other pictures and talk about our dinner adventures the night before.

Aren't these trees incredible? I love it.

Random stuff

Because my parents found out that they were moving to Utah in January, last Thanksgiving we went to Arizona for the last supper. I can't remember the last time that I was down there for Thanksgiving, and it was really nice to be home. It was special K, Raeody, Meanagan and Ryan and I (Rimy). Kind of a small group, but actually really nice. They just had Mac and Raegan and it was timed perfectly so that they were both down for naps at the time of the eating. It was so quiet and nice with just adults. Seriously, it doesn't sound like a lot of fun, and usually I'm one for family chaos, but it was probably one of the best Thanksgivings I've ever had.

My mom let me decorate the table which I super loved. I have no idea why I think it's so fun to arrange plates etc, but I do. Ryan even helped stick the apples.

While we were down there Ryan went to Bass pro shop with my dad. well, they had to get matching fleece jackets. And if you know my dad, you know that he never buys just one of something when he's buying it for someone else, and you know that he loves to match, so they got three each. Green, brown and black. Ryan actually wore his fleece jackets quite often last winter.
I'm not sure how often dad wore them -he may have needed something a bit heavier for his first Salt Lake winter, but here he is in AZ flashing some sort of gang symbol, no doubt.

So,....I happened upon an estate sale like none other last fall. The old man that had passed away was a nutcracker collector. It's true. There were THOUSANDS of nut crackers that his children were trying to get rid of. thousands. all shapes and sizes and nationalities. I was lucky enough to come away with these two big boys. Take a closer look at the picture. They really are pretty big. (although I have to say, his biggest was about six feet tall. Amazing. So I have a special place in my heart for nutcrackers at Christmas because my grandma had some big ones that she would always put out at Christmas and of course the care bear nutcracker movie that we would watch over and over again. I named mine (the one on the right) Dimitri -or Dimka for short, ( I was reading the Vampire Academy at the time of the purchase) and I told Ryan he could name the other one. He named it....Creepy. He apparently does not have a soft spot in his heart for nutcrackers. -I should probably make him watch the carebear nutcracker movie with me. So we now have Creepy and Dimitri. at Christmas time.

Per request, mrs piggy pin explanation

Ryan and I did the "give a day get a day" program which basically means that we spent a few hours pulling weeds with my good friend Jenny the volunteer coordinator (that's right, I know some people) for the Ogden nature center. For our service we received two free tickets to Disneyland. When we went to Disneyland to claim out tickets they gave us those awesome Ms Piggy pins.
Genius on Disney's part, really. I imagine they have to have about the same amount of workers there whether it's super busy or not, and just think of all the money the made in extra sales of food etc. having all those people there. -I know Ryan and I spent a ton. Most volunteer people upgraded their tickets to a two or three day pass or park hopper too. -which was not free. smart Rober Iger, smart.

My birthday .... last NOvember

Last November I turned 30. fun. To ease the pain I spent the day at the happiest place on earth!

IT WAS AWESOME. I love going to Disneyland with family because it's really fun to be all together and see the kids having fun, but Disneyland with just two adults is a whole different experience. Ryan let me be the queen and call all the shots ( sooooo different from real life....sarcasm) so I picked all the rides and I even finally broke down and got those ridiculous mickey ears.
Every time I go to Disneyland I want those ears but they're such a rip off. I figured it was go big or go home this time -being the birthday time and all, and I new that I could make Ry wear them too.
The following comment made all thirty bucks we spent on hats worth it. We were standing in line at the peter pan ride and Ryan of course was standing there in all his mouse ear glory. Some random person walking by looks at Ryan and mutters under his breath, "that's one big ass mouse." hahahaha. awesome.
We even went to the blue bayou for my first time ever. It was amazing! Seriously,...It's going to be hard not to go there every time now. Oh well. Definitely worth it on my birthday. Geeez writing this post makes me want to go do it all over again tomorrow. Sad. We had a blast!

Con-truck-dictions

Often times I find myself in quite a contradicting situation and think it's funny. My favorite being the title inspiring "con-truck-diction." I know, I know,.. the wit amazes even the owner.

I will be at Sunflower market (a natural organic produce store comparable to "sprouts" for you Mesa-ers) toting organic greens in my "save the planet" reusable grocery sacks. Then, purchase complete, head out to my gigantic environment stomping natural resource binging ridiculously over sized truck. As I'm loading the groceries, and consequently myself, into the truck I wonder how many sunflower attendees are shaking their head in confusion.

Tonight another such contradicting event occurred. I rode Scoot over to the Murray High track and jogged quite a bit. Now, when I jog, -even just a little, my whole face turns red and I look as if I've only just barely escaped a war zone. -panting, wild look in the eyes and all. As I've mentioned I did more than just a little jogging so all of these lovely conditions were heightened.

Well tomorrow morning we're having a salon meeting before our day begins and so I thought that I would be charitable and bring in some delicious made from scratch banana cupcakes. -my mother's recipe, thus delicious. I noticed before I left for the track that we were out of sugar, so on the way home I stopped by the grocery store for the goods.
Well, I happened to run into two different people from my ward and passed by many more unknown in the store. There I was looking like I had just finished a marathon and carting around the biggest bag of sugar that they sold. I wonder if I looked as odd as I felt.