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

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