Going Private...

Hi-

Send me your email addresses so I can add you to be able to view our blog. We decided that we post too much personal stuff on this so it is time to make it "invite only." So yeah--email me (sugar4becky@hotmail.com) and I will add you to the approved list. Oh yeah...and don't mock the awesome email address. It's amazing. I was ten. Leave me alone...

I'll be making this private in one week, so send them right away! :)

Oh yeah--and Kristine, you need to add the above email address to your approved list. I realized I gave you the wrong one!

House!

A week ago we put an offer on a house, (again) but this time they actually accepted! The only thing we had to conceed on was the close date. We wanted it to close the first of January, but we moved it to the end of January (the 27th) so the current owners could have a little more time to move out.

We are so stoked! (anyone want to help us move) :)

We decided after getting our car towed from our current apartment complex, having the landlords come in our place without letting us know, and charging us late fees when our payments weren't late, we were done renting. So we started looking again and found an awesome house.

We will be moving to Woods Cross, UT. It is just west of Bountiful and west of the freeway. We call the area "the industrial revolution" because the refineries are to the south and there are some warehouses to the west a bit. Even with some big businesses kind of close to the neighborhood, the neighborhood is really nice. There is a park just a few houses down with baseball diamonds and all the works. Also the houses around us are pretty nice.

The house is a lot nicer than most of the houses we were looking at. The upstairs is all complete with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. The kitchen is also on the upper level.The basement is still unfinished, so we will be able to put some sweat equity into the house and grow into it (if anyone knows how to sheet rock we need to have a talk). Also we have some work to do on the landscaping; the front yard is finished but the backyard is still just dirt.
I think we should leave the dirt and make bike jumps... Becky is not on board so far.

That's it from us, we will get some house pics up here soon. Have a Merry Christmas.

Five Things...

So I got tagged by Tennille this time!

5 things I was doing 10 years ago:

• going back to school after spud harvest break
• getting ready to enroll in drivers ed
• working on the yearbook staff
• dreading snow (ha, not much has changed!)
• making morning runs to broulim's (it was brand new!)

5 things on my to-do list today:

• go see some more houses (hooray!)
• finish up my work to-do list (too long to list)
• buy toothpaste and stuff to finish dinner
• do more laundry
• read harry potter #4!

5 snacks I enjoy:

• Reese's
• 100 calorie packs--especially the cheeto ones! gross i know!
• popcorn
• nuts--pistachios, cashews, almonds...
• carrots

5 things I would do if I were a $Millionaire$:

• Go on a world cruise
• Visit the Seychelles Islands
• Pay a lot in tithing! :)
• Set up college funds for my kids
• Give some to those in need

5 places I've lived:

• Idaho
• Northern Utah
• Salt Lake City, Utah
• Yep.
• That's about it.

5 people I tag:

• Nikky O.
• Nicole P.
• Lisa
• Jill
• Heidi

Tagged...

Ahhhh yes...I about forgot to do this. Nikky tagged me to list 6 random facts about myself. I've been putting this one off, because I've lived with myself for so long that I now consider myself quite normal. ha!

1- I brush my teeth in the shower. I have ever since I was young. It's faster and more efficient!

2- I also have to sit in the bathroom sink when I put on my makeup in the morning. This is serious. When I got to hotels and they don't have sinks capable of being sat in it really throws me off. In fact, during our house hunting it has been an important factor in determining the quality of the bathrooms...I'm a freak.

3- I have weird feet. I cannot describe this well, and I am not taking a picture of it, but i can stand on the top knuckles of my feet. Ask me to show you sometime.

4- I have a weird tongue. I can do tongue tricks that I haven't seen anyone else be able to do yet. I basically can fold my tongue in half and have it stay there without anything else helping to keep it in place. Also hard to describe...ask me to show you sometime.

5- I'm missing some sinus cavities in my nose and my brain filled it in. So I have a bigger brain than I am supposed to. Albert Einstein apparently had the same problem. Go me?

6- I once flipped the ligament in my elbow "upside down". I had never heard of such a thing, but apparently it happens. It hurts, PS. It's better than a tear, but it's still not desirable. So yeah...try to avoid that if at all possible.

So that brings me to the end of the random things about myself. Time to tag people! I tag Nikki (as in my sister), Tennille & Cody, Lisa, Jill, and Shantel. Hooray!

Long overdue update...

So...time for an update. Since it's been forever since I've written, i'm gonna have to combine a lot of things! First things first--I have a beautiful new niece! She's so sweet and so small.

I love her! Her name is Alexis Nicolette Pena. They call her Ali. So cute! I wish i got to see her more often, along with all my other nephews. It's hard not to be able to see them grow and change!

Another exciting thing that has happened since my last update forever ago was that we went on a trip to Belize (yes Nikky, you finally get your pictures...). :) It was such a fun trip. We went with our dear friends Cody and Tennille and their friends Courtney and Brandon. It was so HOT. Seriously--we were sweating to death.

This is a picture of the Mayan ruins called Altun Ha. It was SO hot and humid on this day. We had the place to ourselves, which was awesome. It was really interesting to be walking around a place that you know has so much history. I really enjoyed it here. It was extra nice without having a million tourists around like we were expecting. That was the nice thing about Belize--it's not a tourist trap yet. I'm sure it is well on its way to becoming one, but at least I got to see it before it does. Since i have so many pictures, i'll just tell you about our trip and let you guess which pictures go to which part! We started out the trip by going cave tubing. It was a blast. You go on a half an hour hike up through the jungle to get to the spot where you put in. It is such a beautiful hike! After a while you finally come to a place where you can jump in the river. It is really slow moving, which makes for a very casual and calm ride. You jump in, hook up in a long line, and let the tour guide lead you on. The river flows through limestone caves that have been hollowed out by the water. In some places the cave is a nearly perfect circle! It was a little crazy when about halfway through the trip we heard rushing water. Keep in mind, you're in a cave so it's pitch black unless you have your headlamps on (which don't really help all that much!). Turns out there is a mini-waterfall (that doesn't sound so mini) that pours into the cave. It was super cool.

The next day we went to Altun Ha, but i already told you all about that. But as a reminder, it was cool, yet very hot. :p

After Altun Ha, we departed the mainland and traveled by water taxi to Ambergris Caye. It is an island about an hour off shore on the barrier reef. It's beautiful! While there we went snorkeling, scuba diving, and kayaking on the ocean. While snorkeling/scuba diving we saw a ton of sting rays (to be expected--we were swimming in Sting Ray Alley!) along with some nurse sharks. We actually got to touch real sharks. It was really cool. The water was extra salty because the reef traps the salt more than it would be on a regular shore. The water was beautiful though--crystal clear! On the beach you could look down and see all the fish swimming. I really enjoyed it. Oh yeah, and by the way--kayaking on the ocean is very hard just so you know...

Anyway, the trip was awesome. It was far too short. I hope we can go on another vacation sometime soon. However, it seems unlikely as we will hopefully be buying a house shortly! We've been house hunting for the last month or so and have found some good options. It will be nice to finally move out of our cramped apartment!

One other thing that has happened since we last updated was a camping trip with my family. It was a lot of fun. PS--this post is well on its way to becoming the longest post i've done. That's what i get for procrastinating the update... Anyway, we went up to Palisades and spent Labor day weekend together. It was really nice to be together as a family; we've been planning it for years but have never actually been able to go. It was nice to get to know Reid better and actually spend some quality time with everyone. Too bad there were a billion wasps! Jason got stung, and he happens to swell up a lot when that happens, hence the sad face in the picture below. Good thing it was only one sting!

And that ends my super long update! I'll try to update more frequently, especially regarding the house.

Not much to update on...

Like the title says, there isn't much to update on in our neck of the woods. I did get to fly out to Pennsylvania last week to do some work with Armstrong which was pretty cool. The trip went much better than expected. Pennsylvania is beautiful, but I wish it had more mountains. It would be perfect then!
So this weekend Breaking Dawn comes out. I'm pretty excited about that. It looks like I will be pretty much useless all Saturday because I'll be reading it. On Sunday we are going to our nephew's baby blessing. That will be really nice. I hope I don't stay up too late on Saturday reading! :)
Other than that, it looks like we might be lucky enough to go to Italy in August. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it works out! I love Europe, and I'd really like to be able to see Italy. All we have left to do is figure out where we are staying and then we will be good to go!
Anyway, that's about it for me. Sorry it's such a short post!

So You Think You Can Dance? I Think I'm Obsessed!

I love SYTYCD. And a few of my blogging buddies also love it, so I thought I'd pull together a big chunk of videos that show my favorite dances this season. I've got a lot of favorites and it's going to be hard to see them go!!

Without further ado, here are my favorites in no particular order:













As you can tell, I have a few favorite couples :) This show has made me appreciate all types of dance--before I hated contemporary and now it's my favorite! The choreographers on this show are amazing. Anyway, I hope you like the vids!

New Nephew!

Exciting news! Jason and I have a new nephew! His name is Ryan, and he is super adorable. He's tiny!! He weighed 5 lbs 8 oz when he was born. This makes nephew #3 for me! This is the first baby in Jason's family, so his parents are really excited. Congrats Shantel & Greg! For more pictures, browse over to their blog...super cute!

New York, New York

It's been a while since I've updated the blog--although I'm not quite as bad as some of my other friends (hint hint!). Jason and I recently got back from New York City. It was so much fun! We went there for work and also for fun. We only got to spend five days there, but we got to see so much that it felt like a lot longer than that--just ask our feet!! :) We flew in late on Friday night, and then Saturday we spent our day with one of my friends from New York, Christen Collins. She makes for one awesome tour guide! She took us to see the Statue of Liberty, as well as some other local spots. We went to Ground Zero, as well as some crazy huge department stores. It was so nice to have her with us on our first day there to help us learn how to navigate the city. Once we mastered the Subways, we were home free. It was so cool! We did everything we could while in New York--we went and saw the Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the American Museum of Natural History, Central Park, Times Square, Broadway, the Brooklyn Bridge...the list goes on and on. We were so worn out by the time we got home! And we still managed to find time to work in between all that touring! I visited with Designtex for two days and trained them, and Jason worked a bit at the ICFF Tradeshow and helped with computer problems. It worked out nicely. Check out our pictures! Oh yeah--and if you know who Kristen Bell is, she's in one of the pictures. They were filming a movie in Central Park when we walked through. Fun!