May 27, 2014

Learning To Cut Hair

For quite some time Andy has been asking me to cut his hair. Typically my response would be something along the lines of, “I don’t know how to cut hair and I don’t want to mess yours up.” To which Andy would reply, “Well, if you mess it up I can go to the salon and get it fixed.” I never liked this idea and figured I would save myself the stress and have him just go to the salon.

One day while we were visiting my brother, I decided to try and cut Andy’s hair and I did a pretty good job. Andy was very impressed and went out and bought us some shears.

The next time I tried cutting Andy’s hair, I didn’t do so well. We both ended up frustrated, I cried, and he ended up going to the salon. The gal at the salon told him all I had to do was blend his hair, otherwise it looked great. Too bad I didn’t know how to blend his hair.

I decided to see if my neighbor Brooke (she went to hair school) could teach me how to cut his hair. Brooke agreed to teach me one evening and I have been cutting Andy’s hair ever since. I so glad I learned this useful skill, it saves us almost $200 a year.

May 14, 2014

Conference Weekend Photos

After waiting for several weeks, I finally received a copy of the photos taken when we hiked the Y. Enjoy!

May 12, 2014

Volunteering At The Food Bank

I have always loved volunteering and serving those around me. In high school and college I took part in clubs where we would go out and volunteer. My favorite volunteer activities were the ones where we would serve at the local food bank and soup kitchen. Something about giving food to others resonated with me.

On April 9th I had the opportunity to go volunteer with the Young Men and Young Women in our ward. The evening was spent at our local food bank restocking the pantry shelves with canned food. I was surprised to see how many of the cans were expired; they weren’t expired by just a few months but by several years.

For me it is always a humbling experience to serve in this kind of way. I feel bad for the people who have to utilize these services and I hope I never find myself in a situation where I need to depend on a food bank for my food. Being in that kind of environment brought back a lot of memories Key Club and Circle K. If you have never volunteered at a food bank or soup kitchen, you really should try it sometime—you won’t regret it.

May 11, 2014

Feelings Of Peace

As I mentioned in this post, I went through a point in my life where I was surrounded by toxic people. These kind of people and the bad environment really took a toll on me and my husband.  My husband and I made the decision that we couldn’t be around those kind of people and subject ourselves to the toxic environment. As part of this decision I made a job change and we quit spending time with certain people.

One day I was looking at a friend’s blog and she posted the following quote.


For some reason that quote hit me and I realized that I am not the only one who has struggled being around toxic people. This quote also helped me feel peace with the decisions we had made to remove toxic people and toxic environments from our lives. Once we started to remove the toxic things in our lives, life became a lot more peaceful and enjoyable.

With the big move looming in front of us, we decided to make one last attempt to build some bridges with the previously mentioned toxic people. We wanted to feel that we had done everything in our power to make the relationships better before we moved. With the help of a counselor we were able to sit down and try to work through some of the things that had been toxic to the relationships. I was terrified each time we walked into one of these meetings, knowing you’re going to have to share your inner most feelings with someone who has wronged you is a scary thing. Each time I have come out of one on of these meetings I have felt heard and like people were willing to try and change. I know that we have done everything we can to make things better. Time will tell if our efforts were worth it, but right now I feel at peace.

May 10, 2014

Conference Weekend

Conference weekend was a busy one for us. On Saturday Morning Andy’s parents and little bother came to visit. We started the day off drinking green smoothies. Andy’s dad was too afraid to try the smoothie; he doesn’t like to eat veggies. More for me, yay!

After we finished our smoothies, we hopped in the car and headed to the Y for a short hike (it’s 3 miles round trip). Before we made it to the first turn Andy’s mom said, “I can’t do it, you guys go on.” The boys responded by saying, “No, we will wait for you.” At every turn this conversation seemed to repeat itself. Eventually though we all made it to the top of the Y. The view from the Y was so pretty. We all sat there for a while and watched the storm clouds roll in. This brought back memories of hiking Timp.

As we were hiking down the mountain it started to snow and the trail turned to mud. Andy’s mom seemed scared by the storm clouds and snow and booked it down the mountain, I haven’t seen her move that fast before. I laughed most of the way down the mountain; I had never hiked in the snow before and found it comical. I don’t know how we manage to do it but it seems like Andy and I always pick the best days to go hiking (just kidding about that, we always hike when the weather seems to be abnormal). By the time we reached the car we were all covered in mud.

What do you do when you are covered in mud? You go to Red Robin for lunch of course! That is precisely what we did. Andy and I both love Red Robin; the Burnin’ Love Burger is our favorite.

The rest of the day was spent running errands and just hanging out.

Sunday Andy and I slept in, made pancakes, and watched Conference. The pancakes were the best pancakes I have ever eaten! They were so fluffy and delicious! You can find the recipe here. Conference was really good too! In case you missed it you can watch it here. My favorite talk was Elder Uchtdorf’s Sunday morning talk about gratitude. I loved all of the uplifting and inspiring talks! Conference gives me time to reflect on my life and it motivates me to be a better person. I absolutely love Conference!

*Andy's dad took photos of us hiking but he hasn't e-mailed them to me yet, when he does I will post them.

May 5, 2014

Missionary Opportunities

One of the things that I miss about Washington is having missionary experiences. Being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints wasn’t a very common thing and I was able to share my beliefs with others quite frequently. Living in Utah most people are members of the Church so you don’t have very many opportunities to share what you know to be true.

This past week I have been blessed with a few opportunities to share what I know. One of my co-workers who is not a member of the Church and he has begun to ask a few questions. I have really enjoyed answering his questions. I hope that he will continue to ask questions. The gospel really does bless lives and change them for the better. I am so glad that I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I don’t know where I would be in my life without the gospel.

May 4, 2014

The Melting Pot

Remember how back in December Andy and I went to the Melting Pot for our anniversary? Remember how we had eaten too much that day and were not able to finish our meal and our waitress was kind enough to give us a voucher to come back at a later date for dessert?

On Friday April 4th we found ourselves eating dark chocolaty goodness at the Melting Pot. It was fun to watch Andy try to remember how to eat fondue, lol. When you eat fondue you use two different kinds of forks, you use a fondue fork and a normal fork that you would use at the dinner table. You use the fondue fork to cook whatever it is you want to eat and you use your other fork to eat the cooked food.

The was the best selfie we could get in the dimly lit room.
During our time at the Melting Pot I caught Andy eating off of his fondue fork and I found his normal fork in the fondue pot. When I asked him why his normal fork was in the fondue pot he didn’t know what I was talking about until he looked over to see it in the pot, not sure what he was thinking. It made for some good laughs though.

If you have never been to the Melting Pot before you have to try it some time, it is so good!

May 1, 2014

The Matched Trilogy


I recently finished reading the Matched trilogy. I really enjoyed the first book of the series, it very engaging and the ending left me hanging and wanting more. Unfortunately, the second and third books weren’t as intriguing. The stories themselves were good but I didn’t have that same feeling of “What’s going on? What’s going to happen now?” that I had with the first book.

With reading there are some books that you really enjoy and some that you don’t. This series was a little bit of both like and dislike for me. Oh well, you can’t win every time.

On a side note, I have officially read five books this year. Seven more to go and I have met my goal of twelve books for the year.