BYU Rugby & HOT Krispy Kreme Doughnuts

For date night on Saturday, March 5th, Trevor and I went to the BYU vs. UofU Rugby game up at Rio Tinto stadium (where the Real Salt Lake soccer team usually plays). We got in for free courtesy of my company (thanks Property 23!!). All we had to do was wear our free "Warrior Rugby" t-shirts to support and advertise for my boss' new rugby team here in Utah. They are new, but they are awesome and they're going to be big!
So, even though we're in a red stadium wearing red, white, and black t-shirts, we were NOT rooting for Utah. We rooted for BYU! And it's a good thing, too, because they won! Woot woot!

Rugby is seriously such a cool sport. I don't know too much about it (at all, actually), but I'm starting to learn. The night before we went to this game, we watched Forever Strong on Netflix, which is about the Highland rugby team here in Utah a few years back, I think. It's a pretty good movie, and it gave me a very basic understanding of how it works. Sort of :) All I know is that they often do the weird "huddle" thing above when they are putting the ball back into play whenever it didn't go out of bounds. It's kind of fun to watch because it's like a mosh pit until the ball suddenly pops out and they begin running and/or slamming into each other in order to get it in their possession.
I couldn't get any great shots of the crazy tackling and man-on-man impacts that happened, but you can kind of see above where they just got hit. And seriously, they SMACK into each other - no reservations - and they don't even wear protective pads! It's seriously exhilarating. I would go again and again just for the tackles... it's like waiting for the big "wreck" watching a Nascar race, but better! :)

Afterward, Trevor had a craving for hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts. When we got close, we hoped that we would see the nice, red glow from the "hot now" sign. Well, we got lucky! So we pulled in and I begged Trevor to let us actually go inside instead of drive through so we could see them making the doughnuts. I felt like such a little kid again, but it was just as exciting now as it was then! I love it.

They had just started making a fresh batch when we got there, so I got to document the first couple rows of doughnuts "plopping" out of the rising compartment. You can see below that a couple of the doughnuts had a little issue and one landed on top of the other. Those went into the "reject" pile :)
After they float and cook in the oil on one side, the "flipper" flips them over and they get to cook on the other side. Perfect and goldenly delicious!
And then, the BEST part... the "icing on the cake" so-to-speak. Or, at least, glazed icing on the doughnut! They are so beautiful and shiny when they come out the other side! I could watch the waterfall of sugary deliciousness for hours, probably!
Even though Trevor didn't want to get out of the car and walk in at first, by the time we left he was really glad he did and admitted it was way fun to go inside and watch the doughnuts cook. Yay for simple, spontaneous fun at Krispy Kreme. And yes, they were DELICIOUS. And yes, we had to buy a bottle of milk or else we wouldn't have survived :)

I hope you're drooling....

California in Feburary

Argh. I really am a binge blogger. Here I go missing another month, practically! Shame on me! I'll try to catch you up on some of my recent happenings! On February 23 and 24th, for work, I got to go on my second trip to California. It was definitely nice to escape the cold and snow for a break of moderate temperatures and sunshine!

We flew into Long Beach airport on Wednesday the 23rd. This is the smallest airport I have EVER been in. Seriously. What you see in the picture below is... the whole airport. You get on and off the planes by walking out to the tarmac and going up the steps! It was awesome! But it's a good thing it was sunny that day!
After we met with our client, we had a few hours to kill before our flight and we were able to travel down to Long Beach to see the ocean. Oh man. It's been way too long since I last saw an ocean (okay, maybe only last July, but it seems like FOREVER!).

Here's us driving through downtown on Ocean Drive:
And me out by the Pacific Ocean. They had two or three of those facilities you see behind me... I'm still not sure what they are. The water was cold, but I was just happy to feel the sand between my toes and the wind in my hair and sun on my face!
And yes, please excuse my nice business pants rolled up for the occasion ;)
Ahh.... water, sand, and sunshine.
Walking back to the car along the sidewalk high above the shore level. You had to walk down a ton of stairs to get to the actual beach. Almost sunset time. This is heaven on earth:
That night, we said goodbye to SoCal and got on a plane up to Oakland, CA and went straight to sleep. The next day, we had a mid-morning appointment with a client in Tracy, CA (about 45 minutes east of Oakland), so we drove out there. On the way, we saw some of the most beautiful, unique scenery. There were green rolling hills dotted with windmills and grazing cattle. I just couldn't believe it was so green in February! See?:
About mid-afternoon, I returned to Oakland and waited (aka napped in the hotel) until our third appointment later Thursday night. By this point, it started raining, and the slow, persistent storm continued until we left northern Cali on Friday morning. Right at dusk on Thursday night, we got to drive over the 6 mile long San Mateo Bridge into San Mateo (imagine that!) on the other side of the bay. In this picture (sorry so blurry!) you can kind of see where the bridge takes a left turn and raises up for ships to pass under:
I had so much fun in California. I hadn't been to Northern California in a really long time, but I have decided I think it is just GORGEOUS. It's got a different vibe than any other place I've been in the U.S. and I seriously think I could live there if it weren't for the outstanding taxes, house prices, gas prices, and oh yes, taxes!

For now I'll just enjoy the memory from the pictures. And I hope you enjoyed them too! :)

Skullcandy is Delicious!

My latest bargain purchase were some new headphones from Skullcandy (because, let's be honest: the standard headphones that come with iPods are AWFUL and they make my ears hurt!). Also, it helped that the COO of Skullcandy came to visit Trevor's lecture series class recently and handed out a 50% off coupon for a purchase up to 3 items from their website. So, I happened to go on the website when it was "free shipping on all orders" day (YAY!) and purchased two sets of headphones for $15!!

Here is the pair I got for myself:Yes. It's hot pink. To match my camera. Well, not on purpose, but I must have a subconscious obsession with hot pink! :) It also has a MICROPHONE so I can talk on the phone hands free. I have already tried it out and I'm obsessed!! I think talking on the phone is much more fun when you have two hands to drive (if you're in the car), or do dishes, pick things up, type on the computer (when you're at home/work). Yep. This was definitely a good investment. I'm also just excited to have a more comfy set of headphones to use while jamming to music while cleaning up my house (it's honestly the only way I can get things done).

The second pair that I got are exactly the same but they are silver. I'll probably give those to my brother, Mike, when he gets back from his mission this summer!

I'm sure you're also wondering about sound quality... right? Well, I'm surprised, actually! The first thing I noticed is that they fit so snugly in my ears that they actually cut out a lot of outside sound (even without any music playing). So, you really do get the full experience of the music straight to your ear without any interference from outside noise or just... air!

It truly is "candy" for your skull, and I'm in LOVE!

Household chores... here I come!!!!

Valentine's Day 2011

Well, I have to say that this Valentine's Day wasn't the most successful one that we've ever had. In fact, we really struggled to make this one work. But that's okay, right? It's our 5th Valentine's Day, and I guess since 4 out of 5 were very successful, it was time for something to go wrong. So, I'll tell you about our night, and then maybe you'll understand why we never had a chance to get a picture of ourselves! :)

I made dinner reservations for us to eat at the Riverhorse on Main street in Park City for Tuesday night (the 15th) because, due to us waiting too long to reserve a spot, Monday was full. But that was okay, we figured, because it'd be less crazy anyway! Well, about a half week before our planned dinner, Trevor found out he had to make a last-minute trip down to Las Vegas on Monday evening and he wouldn't be back until late Tuesday when he had to go take a test. Well, my feathers were ruffled, but we just changed the reservation to Wednesday night at the same restaurant.

Okay. So things are set and I am SO excited to go on a fun little date with my husband and eat at a great restaurant with fabulous reviews!! Wednesday, I got off work at 5, headed home to touch up and change, and Trevor and I exchanged Valentines. (This part of the day was great, and made the whole adventure worth it.) I gave Trev a Carrabba's gift card (for a future "schfancy" date) and he gave me the palm tree necklace with emeralds and little diamonds :)
He's been pretty excited, lately, about colorful gemstones. And I can't say I'm complaining at all because I get to wear very lovely jewelry! And yes, I did change my outfit to match that necklace! :) I also got Trevor the cutest Valentine's Day balloon I have ever seen:
Shortly after exchanging valentines, we decided to make our way up to Park City early to stop by the Tanger Outlets before dinner. On the way up, we could see that there was a rather dark cloud looming above Timpanogos mountain (Park City is on the other side). We were a little worried that it would snow, like it always does, but we were still prepared to go up and have some fun!

So, when we were getting close to Park City, it did start to snow, but it wasn't too heavy nor was it sticking to the ground. We still weren't too worried. We stopped at J Crew first (which, by the way, I have never shopped at before, but had to check out per the recommendation of my friend Corinne Davis - she raves about it on her blog). Well, I think I fell in love at first sight. And I would have had a harder time if the cardigan and shirt I bought weren't 40% off plus a 15% off student discount (yay for Trev still being in school!!!). See exhibit A:
I just love love love the black 3/4 sleeve cardigan. So classic. It will never EVER go out of style :). And, like many other women lately, I am somewhat obsessed with the cute ruffle shirts!

Then, we visited Banana Republic (where Trevor had a gift card) and he got a few shirts. However, the outlets were completely empty, which might not be too weird for a Wednesday night, except we started to figure out that it probably had to do more with the quickly accumulating snow outside. After 20 minutes in J Crew, it had started to stick to the roads.

We had about a 20 minute drive to main street, but we quickly realized that we were in big trouble. It was a BLIZZARD outside, the roads were covered, and there aren't any street lights to guide your way. After about 15 or so minutes of trying desperately not to drive off the road, I called to cancel our dinner reservation. We didn't want to risk the snow piling up more for the next hour or so that we were eating.

We started feeling so upset at ourselves for not checking the weather beforehand. When we finally pulled up the radar on Trevor's phone, we realized that the storm was reaching from Idaho all the way to Provo and was traveling south quickly! The storm was honestly about 1/4 the size of the state of Utah, or bigger, and it was right on top of us.

Dreading the long drive back (usually about an hour without weather issues) on the winding roads and through Provo Canyon, I contemplated just getting a hotel for the night. What we had already driven through was scary, and it wasn't going to get any easier. But Trevor really wanted to go home, so off we went.

We struggled through almost two more hours of this:
Combined with this:
Sometimes we would follow the tail lights of the car in front of us, and just hope they could see where they were going and that we wouldn't follow them straight off the side of the road. But most of the time, there were no cars and no lights to show the way. We relied on reflector sticks or barriers on the side of the road, and if we could see the road lines, we would just follow them. I also followed along with the street map on my phone, just to make sure we were still on a road. And I said about 10239348 prayers. But we couldn't see more than 5 to 10 feet in front of us for most of the drive and there were moments when the road lines would disappear that we had no sense of direction whatsoever. It was a level 10 out of 10 stressful. So this is how I feel right now, about the weather in UT:
Needless to say, we DID make it (somehow) safely back to Provo. We pulled into Happy Sumo as soon as possible (because, by now, I was STARVING and it was 9:30pm) and got some yummy sushi.

So, no, it didn't go as planned. And, no, we didn't have a nice relaxing dinner at an amazing restaurant in Park City. But, you know what? We definitely had an adventure. Granted, it's an adventure I don't ever want to repeat, but we helped keep each other sane when we were close to losing it, and that definitely brought us closer together. And we learned our lesson that we should always, ALWAYS check the weather before traveling to Park City in the wintertime.

So, HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! And I hope yours was wonderful and much less crazy than ours! :) <3

Playing with Color

When I was out in NC, I was showing my parents my new camera and how it could pick out colors and leave the rest black and white. Here are just a couple of the pictures I took to show them. I'm still getting the hang of it, but it's pretty fun! This green themed one is my FAVORITE:
And reds/oranges:
Yellows:
Let's play a game with these pictures!! Okay?! I spy, with my little eye: two wedding rings, a picture frame, some pearls, four oranges, a wedding announcement, a fake plant, a knife block, two bananas, and a newspaper.

Happy hunting :) And make sure to check out the other two posts I did today, below!

Trip Back East

So, with the new year came a new job title for me! I have been promoted, in a sense, from the "Client Relations Manager" to the "Client Success Director". What does this entail, exactly? Well, for one it means I no longer have the responsibility of listening to clients' concerns and problems and having to figure out to remedy these situations. Hallelujah! A year and a half of that will just do you in. So, now I work directly with our successful clients. I get to speak with them, get testimonials from them, and sometimes I get to meet them in person!

That's where my recent trip back to the east coast comes in! On Friday, January 28th, I was able to fly out to Raleigh, NC (yay! my hometown!) to meet a client. LUCKILY, this client lives 10 minutes from my parents' house, so I got to stay with them for the whole weekend while I did some work on Saturday! Hooray!

It was so fun to see them, talk with them, go out to eat with them, and go to church together at my old home ward. Lots of awesome people and memories! I didn't get many pictures from the occasion, but I have some awesome memories of just laying in front of the gas fireplace and talking for hours with my parents. I love how you just become friends with your parents as you get older :)

After NC, I got to fly up to Connecticut to meet with a second client. I'd never been to CT before, so that was another awesome adventure! The stories and feedback I got from these two clients that weekend will soon be posted on my work's website. They aren't up yet (as of today), but if you want to check out the awesome company I work for, you can visit our website: Property 23

Anyway, I wanted to share with you a couple of pictures that I took from the plane as we originally took off from SLC the morning of the 28th. It was a really foggy morning in the valley, and as soon as we broke through the very low clouds, I could see why:
Yes, those are the tops of the mountains in the background. The layer of clouds was so thick and low that the mountains popped out from above them and you couldn't see one spec of the huge Salt Lake Valley that's hidden below those clouds.


It's crazy - almost like you'd never even know there's a large city underneath all of that! It was even more awesome in real life! I just had to share!!

Long story short, I really think I'm going to enjoy this new job. I rather like traveling and exploring new places! Next stop is probably CA before the end of the month! Hooray :)

My Half Birthday (Yes, I'm Serious)

So it's confession time: I really like reasons to celebrate, and so sometimes I just do a little mini-celebration for my half birthday (you know, the 6 month mark between birthdays). My half birthday always falls on January 20th. And no, I don't expect gifts or anyone to sing to me. That would be crazy. But I DO use it as an excuse to make myself a half cake. No. I'm not kidding. See the evidence:
Okay, so I'm not the world's best cake maker, but YOU try frosting a soft, three-layer cake, okaaaay?!
The next day, I took it to work to share the goodness with my co-workers. Here's a picture of what the inside looked like (I was so excited that it looked like a legitimate layer cake!!):
And I used a box (gasp!) cake mix, but it was some sort of luxury kind, I'm CONVINCED, because it was amazing and moist! If you look hard enough in the above picture, you can see the little moist dark chocolate chunks that were in the cake batter. Good heavens. I love chocolate :)

Happy delicious half birthday to me! :D