Happy Birthday Riley & Mycol!

A Tribute to My Favorite Girls!

10 years ago this week my sister was gearing up to have her #3 and last child. A little girl! It would be my second little niece. I was so excited. I had missed the birth of my first niece, Riley, while I was on my mission. I couldn't wait to have a new addition to the family to spoil. Then on June 25th little Mycol, who I now call little "m" was born. She was such a beautiful little baby. If there's one thing my sister does really well...let's be honest my sister does just about everything really well...but what she really really does well, is have beautiful children.

To help my sister out I went down and picked up my nephew Logan and my niece Riley and we had a great sleep over followed by a fun day at Lagoon. I really wish I had a scanner (this was back before the digital camera age), because if I did I'd scan the funniest picture I have of Riley passed out in the back seat of my car after a long fun day at Lagoon. Her hair is standing up on end from the cotton candy she'd rubbed in it earlier, and she's desperately hanging on to a rainbow sucker the size of her head that after falling asleep became stuck to the side of her face. But even through deep sleep, she maintained an iron clad grasp on the dang thing. Defiantly a 2 year olds dream day at Lagoon.

Anyway, back to the point of this post. In honor of my little "m's" 10th birthday, and in honor of Riley who turned 12 in April, before I was a blogger. I'm posting the slide show above. Some of my favorite pictures of my favorite little girls.

Happy Birthday girls! I love you to the moon and back!

Third Trimester Blues

I'm beginning to wonder if being pregnant is a little glimpse into what it must feel like when you get old. My grandma always say's that the worst part of aging is your body and mind stop agreeing. Your mind still wants to be young and go go go...but you body keeps saying stop stop stop. That's very much what I feel like these days. My third trimester has hit and I'm beginning to feel my body slowly resisting all my good intensions. I start out the day with a "to do" list that seems fairly reasonable, but by item 2 or 3 my body cries out..."What are you doing to me!” It's rather discouraging. I've never been someone content with sitting around doing nothing. It drives me crazy. I've also never been a nap taker. I will admit that when I met my husband he introduced me to the Sunday afternoon nap and I do now occasionally indulge, but even that drives me crazy some Sundays. These days however, by body is begging me for more and more naps and my mind is saying..."But we have so much to do!" In my little world, it's complete torture.

On a side note, if anyone is interested in going the upcoming Lavender Days, I have $1 off admission coupons (check out http://www.younglivingfarms.com/lavdays.asp for more info). Also, if you really do love El Pollo Loco, I have a few gift certificates left and I'm happy to give you one. They're for free meals. Just give me a call and I'll hook you up.

Happy One Year Anniversary to Us!!!

I can hardly believe it...we've been married one year. It's gone by so quickly, however is some ways it feels like forever, only because I can hardly imagine what my life was like before I met Arnold. We've had a wonderful first year of marriage with many more to come!

Below is a slide show with some of my favorite wedding pictures. We really had the most wonderful wedding day. I was very smart and decided since I plan events for a living the last thing I wanted to be was my own wedding planner. Thanks to a great referral from Cindy, we found Kimberly and let her do all the stressing on our wedding day. It was perfect! The best part; I remember every detail. It wasn't a blur for me. We relaxed, breathed in, and let every moment wash over us. If I had it all to do over again, I wouldn't change a thing.

I'm so greatful to be married to such a wonderful man who I love more than anything. We have been very blessed.

Our Wedding Day...One Year Ago!

Chick Food!

You may or may not notice that I've updated my 'recipe of the week' a little early. This week Arnolds been working late, as the crew filming for their new web site is in town and they have a lot of area to cover. He called me last night and said to go ahead and plan dinner without him. Now, while I miss him terribly I have to say I got a little excited about dinner because I happened to be watching the food network and Giada was making what looked like the yummiest Creamy Artichoke Soup. It looked so simple and easy. I really wanted to try it. However, this is definitely something Arnold would categorize as "Chick Food" and with him around it never would have been approved as dinner worthy. So I ran to the store bought the couple ingredients I was lacking and got to cooking. It turned out great and really was one of the best soups I've had. So, if you like artichokes I highly recommend it. And if you have a husband like mine...you might have to wait for a night alone or cook a huge steak to go with it. Enjoy!

P.S. I used sour cream instead of mascarpone cheese. If anyone knows where you can buy marscapone cheese in Utah County, please let me know.

The Crazy Chicken

It's only Tuesday and I'm already wishing tomorrow were Friday! The next few weeks will be quite busy for me as I gear up for all the PR and promotions surrounding the grand opening of El Pollo Loco "The Crazy Chicken" (one of my clients), and that's exactly what I feel like...a crazy chicken. For those of you familiar with El Pollo Loco, yes they are finally opening up their first location in Utah. For those of you who are not...it's a yummy California restaurant, made famous for their tasty citrus marinated, fire roasted chicken. If you’re already a huge fan, check back with me after the 24th and if I'm still alive and have any left over "FREE Meal" coupons I'll be happy to share.

As for the rest of my life things are moving along rather smoothly. Arnold and I spent Saturday painting Reese’s bedroom. I went with the green walls and they are so cute. We also hung the curtains and put together the dresser. RC Willey made a stop to deliver my recliner rocker. Yea!! It's so fun to see her little room coming together. I also got groceries, did the laundry and cleaned out my office. Well, needless to say I paid the price on Sunday. I was so tired and so soar, church was torture to sit through. I'm really struggling to learn my new limitations as a pregnant woman. It's pretty frustrating that I don't have the strength and/or stamina to accomplish as much as I used to in a day. But my doctor keeps assuring me that it will all come back.

Other interesting things going on in our lives right now...Arnold had a great event with the CVB last weekend. They played a significant role in bring the "STIHL Timber Sports" event to Utah. We went the VIP opening last Thursday and had a really fun time. I've never really watched the event on ESPN (surprise, surprise...ESPN? What's that?), but I actually really had a good time and found it very entertaining. This week Arnold has a big video shoot for the launch of their new web-site. A film crew will be flying in from California and Arnold will have to oversee the shoot. That means he'll be working all day Saturday (no fun), but I'm going to go and help him. It'll be a good time!

And last but not least, the basement construction is going strong. We found out on Monday that they should be done in about 3 weeks. That's ahead of schedule and I'm so happy. My food storage can finally move back to the basement. This also means that the furniture in Reese’s room can move to the basement and we can finish her room. Yea!!!! Of course it also means that I'll have to organize and decorate the basement family room, bathroom and bedroom, not to mention I'll now have a whole other floor to clean...but I'm going to focus on the positive. It's all good.

Happy Birthday Dan!!

June 10th is our nephew Dan's birthday! Happy birthday Dan. We love and miss you. We wish we were there so we could help celebrate. Have a very happy day!