Relief Society Dinner

Last Wednesday, January 19th, our ward Relief Society held a "Resolutions Dinner" for the new year of 2011! We ate some delicious food (salmon and pasta, yum yum!) and learned a lot about what goals we can set for ourselves this year.

We were assigned, by name cards, to our tables. It was nice because I got the chance to talk to and learn about new people (which I always love to do!).

After it was over, I snapped a picture with most of the girls at my table.From L to R: Me, Katherine Ellis, Mary Herrington, Karina White, and Jessica Stuart

Thanks ladies! It was fun :)

Dear Everyone,

Okay, hi!

I was just wondering if you could all stop getting pregnant and having babies :)

You see, it's not that I'm NOT happy for you, but it sure would be nice if I could join you someday soon!

But not to worry! I have a doctor's appointment today and the nice doctor is going to give me some awesome medication that (*fingers crossed*) should help with all of that!

Wish me luck and pray for me!

Oh - and congrats to all of you who are pregnant or just had your babies! I really AM excited for you! I promise! :D

With love and a bit of jealousy,

Me

Recap of 2010

I was reading through my old blog posts the other day, and then I realized that last January I did a re-cap of all the great things that happened in 2009, so I thought it would only be fitting to do the same thing for 2010. Now, I have to qualify that 2010 wasn't nearly as "peachy" as 2009, so I'm going to have to include a couple of negative things that made 2010 the way it was. But, here goes:

• Trevor fell really, really ill and had many visits to the doctor, resulting in having a colonoscopy that showed that he has the digestive disease called Ulcerative Colitis.
• I had to deal with a major flood at one of the apartments I manage.
• I was called to be the Ward Music Chairperson and Choir Director in our ward and I did it for the entire year, meaning I put together my first ever Christmas Program!
  
• We were able to welcome cute little Kate Kimball into the world and spend a lot of time with her (congrats Dave and Heidi!)
  
• Got to go skiing with my friend Melanie!!
  
• Trevor and I celebrated our 4th Valentine's Day!
• I became a certified yoga instructor after completing a 200-hour training at It's Yoga.
• Stopped using the birth control pill!
  
• Got to visit Zion's National Park and the Grand Canyon with my parents (including hiking Angel's Landing - the most intense and awesome hike I've ever done!)
• We celebrated our 2 year anniversary!!
  
• Trevor spent every week of the summer months (not including weekends) in Las Vegas expanding his parking enforcement company.
• Heidi and I drove to Vegas with a 4-month-old (Kate) and survived! We visited our hubbies for the weekend and we got to go to the M&M factory on the strip! Trevor and I also dined at Cheesecake Factory and got to putt some golf balls at his golf club down there.
• Traveled to NC for 10 days where we got to go to the beach, see lots of family and friends, and just enjoy vacation!
• I turned 23 years old and Trevor turned 26!
  
• I laid out by the pool A LOT with my friend Christina! Trevor played a lot of golf with his friend Dave.
• Welcomed our sweet, sweet nephew Kelan into the world. He is so sweet! Congratulations to Meghan and Steve! I also got to spend a lot of time helping out at Meg's house since she now has 4 little ones! :)
  
• We changed health insurance (again!)
• I got a raise!! And a 401K!
  
• Happily welcomed Henry Buck into the world (proud parents are Randy and Jenny)
  
• Found out the Ballards are pregnant, due this coming March!! Congrats you two!
• Found out the Porters are pregnant AGAIN, due sometime next year! Yay again!
  
• Welcomed my aunt Kelly and uncle Jim into our home for a couple days while they were traveling and we got to hike to Timp Caves together and also went out for dinner at the best restaurant in SLC!
• Got to see the lead singer of Dashboard Confessional in concert with my friend Miriam!
  
• Halloween at Meghan's house (for me) and at home (for Trevor because he was sick). At work, I dressed up as a bumble bee!
  
• Got Trevor feeling better (FINALLY) by him taking prednisone. We also changed GI doctors and found one we like much better!
• Tried for months to get pregnant, and failed :(
• Had Thanksgiving at Trevor's parents' house with lots of yummy pies!
• Great time shopping on Black Friday with the girls and lunch at Pizza Factory.
  
• Changed positions at my company
• Discovered the wonders of Amazon.com
  
• Trevor got 10 cavities filled! Wow! Thank goodness we finally got to the dentist!
• Made our first Christmas cards ever!
  
• Spent Christmas Eve at Trev's parents and Christmas day at his sister, Meghan's house playing with Lego's and the Wii!
• Learned a lot about patience, temperance, love, sacrifice, and enduring.
• Read the first book of "The Hunger Games" series
  
• Had our New Year's Eve dinner at CPK and watched the ball drop on TV in the comfort of our home!

Wow! As I was making this list, there were so many things that we did! Even though I would consider it a tough year overall (or at least one of the toughest I've had so far), we sure did make some great memories still! I can't wait to see what unfolds for us in 2011!!

Love,

Alex

BYU vs. Air Force Basketball

Yesterday (Saturday), Trevor and I spontaneously decided to walk over to the BYU vs. Air Force basketball game going on in the Marriott Center. Yes. I said spontaneously. I know, I'm shocked too. Anyone who knows Trevor well at all will attest to the fact that he has a very VERY hard time being spontaneous. He just really likes to plan for things, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it can definitely cause disagreements since he's married to ME - and I tend to like to be pretty spontaneous.

Anyway, we went. And there were TONS of people there. I mean full-house! We got there a little late and ended up sitting at the VERY top row of the student section. At least we got a nice wall to lean back on and didn't have to stand up at all! It was an okay game, but BYU was winning by quite a bit the whole time so it got a little boring. So I started playing with the settings on my camera.

This is reason #3028918 why I love my camera:
So that first picture is just a normal picture... but the next two show the magic - you can select a color that you'd like to pick out and have everything else be black and white. Take a look:
Yellows are cool, but I LOVE this one of the blues. In fact, I think BYU should put it online as an advertisement for BYU Basketball. Haha
Anyway, it was fun to get out and get to a game. It's "free" with the all sports' passes we purchased this year, so the more games we go to, the cheaper each game will be! Go BYU!

New Year's Eve!

For New Year's Eve, Trevor and I played it pretty low-key but it really was so wonderful! First, we got dressed up and went to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. We were able to walk right in and get seated immediately! It was awesome. (Although we did plan to go to Texas Roadhouse and there was a 3-hour wait ... I guess we know where everyone in Provo was that night!!).After dinner, we got the movie "Salt" from a nearby Redbox and watched it. After that, we still had an hour and a half until midnight so we watched "The Crucible" on instant Netflix. It's a pretty thought-provoking film. But yea, trust me, I wish Netflix's instant movies were a little more main-stream.

Anyway, we watched the ball drop on TV at midnight and shared a New Year's kiss! Oh - and since we didn't have our own noise-makers, we just imitated the noise with our mouths. It sounded pretty real and we just couldn't stop laughing!! Sooo funny and just wonderful! Betcha didn't know we were such nerds, did you?

HAPPY 2011 EVERYONE! :)

Dinner with Friends

On Thursday, December 30th, we were able to get together with friends. These are not just any friends... these are, like, the greatest friends ever! They consist of 4 of Trev's closest high school buddies and their wives and kids. Namely: David and Heidi (and Kate), Randy and Jenny (and Henry), Shawn and Jana (and Luke & Boy #2), Cole and Meghan (and Girl #1).

Fortunately, Dave's parents were out of town so we got to use their nice, spacious house to host the dinner. Heidi and I were in charge of the main course of the meal. So, we each made our favorite mexican soups. Mine was a Chicken Tortilla Soup with a salsa/water/tortilla chip base and Heidi's was a Chicken Corn Chowder Soup with a bit of a kick with a cheese/cream/corn base. Both very different and equally as delicious. The 10 of us literally finished off two large potfuls of soup!
I didn't take a lot of pictures, but I'll show you the ones I did have. This one is Jana and little Lukey looking awfully darling :)
And here's Cole and Meghan with a foreshadow of things to come... haha :) They are holding Henry, Jenny's son, and Luke is at their feet. Meghan's due in March with her first little girl and we are SO excited for her!
Here are the Porters again - Jana and Shawn and Luke. Luke must have been cute that night because apparently he made it into ALL of my pictures. Sadly I didn't get a picture of anyone else. Shame on me! I even had my new camera! :(
Long story short, it was a VERY fun night full of food, friends, games, and laughter. I seriously love when we are all able to get together. We never know when this will be impossible to do anymore (Meg & Cole already live in TX but were visiting UT that week), so we have to live it up while we still can!

Love you guys! XOXO

New Camera!

Okay, so like I said, I am going to dedicate a quick post to my new camera. I love it. And I want to show you why. First of all, this is the camera:
I really don't think you need more explanation than that, right? I mean, c'mon - it's GORGEOUS. And hot pink. And if you know me, then you know I'd pick hot pink. Duh :)

But just in case you needed MORE convincing that my camera is wonderful, here's some more proof. First, let's take a look at my old camera:
Okay, don't get me wrong. It was a great camera while I had it. Lots of good photos and memories with that camera. But it was time to move on, and here's why... the next picture is a picture of my actual new camera taken with my old camera:
See? Not the best quality ever. Note the difference between the picture above it (the one of the old camera) that was taken with the new camera. Night and day! I'm still not sure why my old camera decided to focus on the keyboard in the background instead of the camera in the foreground. Anyway. That's point number 1.

Point number 2 is the size. I had to take these next pictures with my iPhone so I could compare so these pictures are bad too, but they get the point across. So, from the front you can see that Pink is a little smaller than Silver.
But, the true shocker lies in the overhead shot:
I seriously think my new camera is 1/3 the size and weight of my old camera. AWESOME!! It doesn't even take up half of my purse when it's in the case, thank goodness!

Oh, and did I mention I love it because it's PINK!!?? :D

Christmas Festivities

Wow, okay... so I realize I'm two weeks late getting this posted. I haven't even been that busy. I guess laziness is just taking over. That tends to be how I get in January. Gah. Anyway, onto our Christmas this year!

First, we spent Christmas Eve at Trevor's parents' house in Elk Ridge, UT. I've stolen a couple of pictures off the blog of my sister-in-law, Meghan, to show some of the happenings:
We spent the evening eating a tasty Christmas ham, playing with all the kiddos, talking, snacking, eating desserts, and present opening of course! Trevor and I got mostly gift cards, but we were also able to add some dried apples to our food storage collection! Trent (Trev's little brother) had my name this year, and instead of being boring and just giving me money, he folded two 10-dollar bills into origami boots and even added a little price tag! So creative!!
The above picture is me holding up the "money boots" after opening them and the below picture is a close-up so you can see the detail he put into it! The back of the price tag had the Macy's logo on it! :)
After some wonderful festivities, Trevor and I traveled home to snuggle up and spend Christmas Eve in our own wonderful bed. :)

The next day, we woke up to find all the presents that Santa had left for us under the tree! (Picture is courtesy of my phone, sorry for the bad quality.) We spent the morning opening up all of our gifts and our stockings! It was a bounteous Christmas for us! We feel so blessed!
Trevor opened his main gift - a new touch-screen iPod Nano! :) Thanks Santa! It's SO tiny!!
Here are some of Trevor's stocking stuffers: golf tees, candy, deodorant, gum, iTunes gift card, travel toothbrushes, chapstick, more candy.... you get the picture, no?
Here are some of my stocking stuffers: candles, candy, socks, lip gloss, hand sanitizers, an AWESOME homemade bookmark by my mom, more candy..... again you get the picture right? :)
One of my favorite Christmas gifts is pair of yoga pants from lululemon. Talk about nice tush! ;) I seriously love love LOVE them! And a headband to match, of course!
Some of the other gifts we received included a gym membership for Trev, a really pretty pink sapphire necklace for me, and a NEW CAMERA! (Some of the pictures in this post were taken by my new camera, but I'm going to dedicate a whole post to this new item of mine because it's so AWESOME!!).

Oh! I forgot to mention that before we opened presents we got to Skype with my parents and other extended family in NC for about an hour and a half! We also got to be on Skype with them when they got the Christmas phone call from Mike (he's on his mission in Boise, ID). It was SO much fun to have us all together, even if it wasn't EXACTLY in person :).

So later, after Skype and present opening and getting ready for the day, Trevor and I went over to Meg and Steve's house at about 1:30pm. It was honestly the most fun day getting to play with their 4 kids' new toys! The highlight was getting to put together Kanyon's new huge Lego set! Oh man! Talk about fun! It took hours, but I hope I never get tired of putting together those things! :) Hopefully I have a kid who wants me to do it for him too! He he he....

For dinner they served us delicious cheesy potato soup and then after the kids went to bed we got to play a heated game of Pictionary on the Wii! SOO fun! Trevor and I pulled through and won at the last minute, but I will say it was a CLOSE game! :)

After the game I free-handed this wonderful landscape on the drawing pad :) Hahaha. Seriously, Christmas is about being a kid again, right? Well, it's a good thing I got in touch with my inner child!
Overall, it was the best Christmas I've ever had away from home in NC. It's sad that I wasn't able to be there, but I look forward to a fantastic Christmas celebration with my WHOLE family next year!