The Day of Motivation ~ January 22, 2010

This is a day that had to be documented.  I think all of my motivation that I've been lacking the past 2 months came out on Saturday!  And it came and went...I haven't had any since then :)  But anyway.  Landen and I cleaned the entire apartment and it looks awesome!  I just love, love, love having a clean house.  It makes me so happy.  And it's nice having a little helper :)  Landen was a great sport.  Love him!  During the cleaning I got the urge to rearrange the living room.  We went through many options and ideas and finally settled on this one, which I will admit was Landen's idea.  We absolutely LOVE it!  It has really changed things up :)  After all the cleaning and rearranging we did our grocery shopping.  I'm trying to be better at making one main trip instead of lots of little ones and we were successful today.  And to top it all off, I MADE PIE.  Yep, this is true.  So here are some photos documenting the day:

3 Layer Pumpkin Pie:  Sooo...this is the reason Landen married me, or so he says ;) He's been wanting me to make my 3 layer pumpkin pie for months now...and I finally did it!!! So I had to document the occasion!  YUM. 

 
He's so happy :)

The Rearranged Living Room...with Landen of course!  We're really happy with this set-up. 

Now for Posterity's Sake:  I figured I should take some pictures of Landen and my first apartment together as a married couple! So here we go: Bedroom, view 1

Bedroom, view 2 

2nd bedroom...AKA Landen's drum room :)

 Kitchen, view 1

 Kitchen, view 2 - You may notice that there is no stove...this is a correct assessment of your picture viewing skills!  We have learned to live without one...we have a toaster oven, a hot plate, a george foreman grill, an electric skillet and a crock pot...let's just say we make do...and we're obviously not starving!  The joys of early married life!  I'm just glad we have a washer and dryer (they're in the storage room which I did not take pictures of, no need to document that!!!)...I'd take that over a stove any day!!!

 And of course the bathroom!  With our newly hung shower curtain (Landen's choice), done on the "Day of Motivation!"  It was much easier said than done.  You have to overlap 2 liners and the hooks are kinda crazy and yeah, let's just say it will only get done on an as needed basis!

I'm so grateful to have a good place to live :)  It may be a little chilly in the winter months and have it's quirks, be we like it.  We are blessed!

Las Vegas-Parker Conference 2011

In January I went with a group from work to Las Vegas for the Parker Conference.  It was this HUGE conference for chiropractors and it was AMAZING!!!  I love chiropractic!  It is so incredible.  It has totally changed my life.  It was neat being around so many people who believe in chiropractic...so motivating and energizing!  I loved it!  Now I have to be honest, Vegas isn't my favorite place to visit, but I survived...and was really happy to come home.  Really happy.  This was Landen and my first time apart so it was really good to come home to him :)  While I was gone Landen went skiing up at Beaver Mountain (where he used to work) and had a blast...so I he wasn't allowed to try and make me feel bad that I was going to Vegas without him.  He also got to see his family and friends...I would have rather seen them than be in Las Vegas!  So anyway, here are a few pictures of the adventures in Las Vegas:

As we walked out of the airport there were a bunch of nice vehicles to take you places.  I said to Dr. Layton, "Awe...it was so nice of you to get us a limo!"  Well, he actually did get us that limo!  HA!  He was planning on it anyway, but it was pretty funny. 

Here's a bunch of the girls I work with: Hayley, Tanica, Mindy, Theresa, me and Loree

In our opening session of the conference these 3 Washington Redskin Cheerleaders came out and did this quiet scandalous dance to "Let's Get it Started"...the WHOLE song...it was a LONG dance!!!  Oh my goodness!  All the guys in the place were drooling...so ridiculous.  So anyway, the next day we were going down in the elevator and who got on the elevator???  That's right, the cheerleaders!  The later that day they showed up in one of my classes so by this point I couldn't help myself and had to have the proof I kept seeing them.  So here they are in all their glory...well, not ALL their glory, they have their jackets on here!

One night Dr. Layton took all of us out to dinner so we could talk about the things we'd been learning.  We went to this restaurant called STACK in the Mirage and it was amazing!  So delicious! 

BEST. MEAL. EVER.  

The fillet mignon was PERFECTLY delicious.

I absolutely loved the presentation of the baked potato toppings!!!

And the dessert...YUM.  Everything was edible...even the little STACK thing, it was white chocolate!

This was my fill of Las Vegas for awhile!  I'm good for the next 10 years!  HA!!! 

The Monorail. We had some good times on it...especially one night when we saw these 4 girls celebrating a birthday. There was one guy with them who had pretty obviously hooked up with one of the girls...the one who was ENGAGED! Hmmm...not quite sure how that is going to work out...  

So yeah, it was a good trip.  OH!  One of the other things I thought was crazy was that I spent $3.00 on a 12 oz can of Coke.  Yes, I said 3 DOLLARS!!!  You have got to be kidding me!  I didn't know I was going to spend that much, but it was my money out of our allowance so whatever!  But dang.  Such a rip off!!!  Glad to be home in good 'ol Utah.  I'm not a Vegas girl.

Playing Aunt and Uncle

I realized after I caught up that I didn't blog about Landen and I babysitting Nathan and Rylie.  We'd been wanting to take them to the Living Planet Aquarium for awhile, because we love it so much, and it worked out for us to watch them so Jared and Megan could celebrate their anniversary in November.  So we played Aunt and Uncle for a day...all in all, it was a blast!  We had our moments, but overall is was good.  Kids will be kids and have their crazy times, it was good birth control :)  HA!  And it didn't help that Nathan fell down our stairs...oops!  He was fine, but I felt HORRIBLE!!!  One of those gut wrenching moments.  But I loved the time we got to spend with them: to see the animals, eat McDonald's, watch movies, PLAY, eat cookies, etc.  I love these kids!  They make me happy :)  Here are some pictures of our adventures together:

This is how the day started...and Rylie started it!

At the Living Planet Aquarium:

Nathan LOVED playing on this frog!

Rylie and Landen...BEST FRIENDS.  This will be confirmed later in the pictures...

Petting the stingrays

SHARKS!  And I just LOVE this picture.

So...see those little white buttons...well, they were quite the popular item, when you pushed them it made an animal noise and you had to guess what animal it was, then you could lift up this flap to see if you are right.  We passed them at the beginning because there were a ton of kids over there and I didn't even think Nathan noticed them...boy was I mistaken!   For the next half hour he could hardly enjoy anything else.  Me: "Aren't those jelly fish cool? They're changing colors!"  Nathan: "I want to go back and push those white buttons!"  I kept thinking he would forget about them...but he sure didn't, so finally I gave in and we went back.  Luckily there weren't any other kids there so he could push them until his heart's content...or until more kids came along, which they did.  But after that we were able to fully enjoy the rest of the experience!  You can see his joy:

As I said, BEST FRIENDS. 

Waiting for they boys to go potty...ha!

I figured I should be in some of the pictures...

Nathan and the Penguin.

You can't tell in the picture, but Rylie is rubbing her hands through Landen's hair...she loved it!

Back at home...oh the static!

The beloved toy of the evening...I got that gator from some good friends in Florida on my mission.

They LOVED our stairs!

Did I mention Best Friends???  This is absolutely my favorite picture of the night :) 

Household item turned Nathan's favorite toy. 

Cookie Time!!!

We had such a fun time!!!  I love the little kids in my life, they make me happy :)