Fall Catch-Up

Pictures say a thousand words...so here's a recap of some of our random fall happenings :)

We went to this beautiful wedding for my good friend Jaime. We've played soccer together since we were way little, it was such a fun night!

Her Dad, Matt gave a total tear jerker, make you laugh make you cry toast.

Patrick, the groom is originally from Germany and his Grandma was here for the wedding! She and Russ both had a good time chatting it up in German.

Us with Nate and Myriagh Fankhauser. Myriah is another lifelong friend and teammate.

Love my soccer girls!

We've been soaking in as much family time as possible, although it's never enough!

How could you not love this cute little guy? That Mikey, I love him!

 We had an awesome ward activity at Salem Pond (which is so pretty & fun by the way). The main event was a "rain gutter regatta" competition. This is our sea worthy craft that we made out of cardboard and duct tape.

I was the lucky team member nominated to man our vessel :)

Turns out it filled with water in about 3.6 seconds I ended up swimming across the pond as I pulled the wet cardboard along. Also my oversized life jacket coming up over my head, cold water and the jeans I was wearing didn't help the situation much haha. Angie was waiting for me at the other side and we both had to sprint back across the bridge carrying our "boat" to cross the finish line.

I'm happy to announce that we didn't take last! Wahoo!

Here we are with our boat, the activity was so much fun! We love our ward. 

We celebrated my Grandma's birthday - she is my hero. It's always a blast to get together with family.

 I think I say just about everyday "aren't the mountains gorgeous!" or "look how good those mountains look today!"

We've gone on nice drives and walks to see the leaves in a few different canyons, that's one of my favorite things!

This Sunday walk up little cottonwood canyon before church was especially beautiful.  Great way to celebrate being married 3 months!

I love cooking. 

 Introducing the newest member of the Irion clan!

Ricky and Katie had their 4th with cute little Hannah Katherine Irion. We were lucky enough to go to the hospital with Rob/Angie & Linds/Kode to see her before she was even 24 hours old! 

 I wish you could see this better...but at a red light this girl was trying SO hard to get the perfect shot of a hot air balloon that was in the sky. 

I'm sure that it looked great on her instagram later...but I thought she looked hilarious.

Oh the price we pay to capture that instagram magic haha

 My sister Val had major jaw surgery and had to eat of a syringe for like a week. (no fun)

I went to visit her a few times and make her soup etc, spending time with her is the best.

At one point something got stuck in the syringe and then all the sudden it shot all over the place.

Good times eating through a syringe I tell ya what.

 The padawan will one day be the master:

Look who got into the Civil Engineering Masters program at BYU?!

This guy:

He starts in January and will be done in three semesters! Seriously you don't even want to see the homework this guy does. Bleh. Also as of late he's been talking in his sleep...trying to teach me engineering principles! One of my favorites was when he held up a pillow and tried to explain how every corner had a value. As I just laughed he was a little frustrated that I wasn't "getting the concept". I love it when he talks in his sleep. The other night he was saying who knows what in German. 

Anyway, it's funny how life works out. We thought for sure we'd be going out of state for a masters program but then everything has just felt right and fallen into place with Russ' new job and with his school application. We're truly blessed and excited to know we'll be sticking around a few years!

Last but not least we've been enjoying some homemade pizza! Russ is seriously the dough master and such a good baker! This is one of the pizzas we made for Rob/Angie & Linds/Kode the other night.

It's one of my absolute favorite things to cook things together with Russ. He does his magic with the dough and I slice and dice like crazy for the toppings, teamwork :)

He's also been making some a-MAZ-ing bread too. 

Hashtag nom nom nom nom nom.

So there you have it, some of our random happenings!

Crafty Craft

About a month ago I was bit by the craft bug. It was also the week after Russ and Lindsay's birthday and I still hadn't gotten anything for Linds. So I was perusing her Pinterest to figure out something that I could do for her.  I found some pallet wood wall art that she had pinned and I thought I could totally do it and it would be fun. My biggest thing was figuring where I would find some old pallet wood.

Low and behold 20 minutes later I was out on a run and what do I find?

Some perfect old wood right there on the side of the road! I was so excited and later that day went back and loaded it up in the car.

My next step was to take apart how the wood was held together with nails and wire.

What a mess!

I then pieced together what I had into two different signs. Next up was painting time!

Not gonna lie I had a hard time deciding what to put on these, but once I decided that it was lots of fun!

I picked up some simple stencils, paint and brushes at Joann's and with that I was in business!

Here's the finished product!

I wish you could have seen Val and I trying to figure out the best way to make a stencil for the big W...hilarious.

Even though it was a few weeks after her birthday that we finally gave Lindsay her present it always feels great to give a homemade gift :) I am definitely a gift giver...I LOVE it. Planning what to give, getting it/making it, the surprise factor - it's all the best!!

Millions of peaches, peaches for me

Anyone who is anyone knows it's CANNING SEASON in Utah!
I don't know why, but for some reason I love the idea of canning. The whole process just makes me feel cozy and safe and at home with people I love basking in the goodness of the fall season.

When I was on my mission in Argentina one of the things I couldn't wait to do was canning with my mom in the fall. (You'd think that "taking a normal shower" would be more on my priority list..) but for some reason I was so excited to do things like can peaches with my Mom.

Last year I was home for fall, but didn't do any canning - so there was no way I was missing out again! I got a bunch of great peaches from the farmers market, my madre got some from a cute little fruit stand and we decided to tag team this project. It's always fun to do stuff like that with her...plus I need her to share her wisdom (now that I'm interested in more than just eating some peaches while my mom forces me to help her) so that I know how to do it myself! Which I'm proud to say that I now know what I'm doing!

We spent like 4 hours one saturday just canning and jamming :) We did a whole bunch of canned peaches and then also a lot of peach jam! The jam we tried a bunch of different varieties; regular, peach-cinnamon, peach-pumpkin pie(MMM my favorite!), and peach-ginger. Variety is the spice of life right?!

   

Jammin all day

  It was a great day spent with my mom! Later that week we also did a bunch of pears...yum yum yum!
And now the grapes in my parents yard are ready to be picked and juiced and we also want to do some homemade apple sauce. Can't wait!

Isn't my mom a babe? She was so excited about "the quintessential peach" that she found :)

That same day I guess we were feeling really domestic because we made some Artisan Bread my mom wanted to try that has to rise for like 26 hours or something crazy like that. And I made a variety of banana bread...man I love that stuff.

Another highlight from that same weekend was going to the Utah vs Utah State soccer game with a bunch of old teammates! We did dinner before and then went to the game and just laughed non-stop talking about all the old trips, practices, games, pranks, conditioning, boyfriends - you name it and we experienced it together! It was so much fun, I love those girls, lifelong friends!

I'm an Aggie for life that's for sure.

UTAH STATE HEY AGGIES ALL THE WAY! 

GO AGGIES GO AGGIES HEY! HEY!! HEY!!!

Robbie's Birthday Weekend

I love birthdays. A few weeks ago it was Robbie's (Russ' brother) birthday and his amazing wife Angie is a professional birthday/surprise planner and she went all out! She got a bunch of friends/family to get together and go to a ropes course that Rob has been wanting to do for a while. It was a blast! Then even MORE friends met up with our group to surprise Robbie at one of his favorite restaurants; Outback Steakhouse (mmm I had this delicious crab dish) and even after that the party wasn't over! Angie got it all set up to watch his favorite movie in their backyard projector style. It was quite the day!

The ropes course was such a blast, I hadn't done something like that in a few years so it was even better!

We started out with some dinky (although fun) team building style challenges. On this first one we had to get our whole group through this slack line course...if anyone fell they had to be given a special disadvantage and do the whole course again. We did great up until the very end when I was helping Russ through the last 3 footsteps and onto the post...we both went down! So funny.

So we had to do the course again, my disadvantage was I had to hold a tennis ball in my right hand and only use my left...made it tricky but not too bad. Russ though, he was BLINDFOLDED! Luckily a few others in our group could go through and also help us. Angie especially saved the day since she was the one guiding Russ literally every step of the way. 

Next we had to do this log balance thing, you had to get everyone balanced on it long enough to sing happy birthday and if you fell off you then couldn't talk...that made it hard to get it all figured out! But after getting up close and personal with everyone we eventually did it.

Luckily this is when our guide person figured out that we were more there to climb cool stuff then to have a pow-wow/kumbaya session about what we could learn from each challenge.

So then it was on to the good stuff!

Russ and I took the challenge to climb this big swinging ladder, it was hard to figure out and to do but way fun! You were supposed to do it without touching the ropes on the sides...it was a challenge! Each rung got further and further apart, so by the end I could barely reach the next rung! Luckily Russ was a champ and let me use him as a ladder. Seriously sometimes I had to put my first foot on his knee and then the next on his shoulder, he's impressive right?! Thanks to him we made it to the top, it was way fun! (aaaand pretty sure we did it faster than the other duos...just saying :)

 They also have this giant swing where everyone else pulls you up a few stories and then you pull the rope and let 'er fly! I love that drop feeling in your stomach.

Linds getting strapped in for the swing

The boys pulling me to the top

Geronimo!!!

On top of the "eagles nest"

One of the last things we did was the "Eagles Nest". Basically you climb up this wooden pole (that's shaking back and forth might I add) then stand on this little platform on top and jump out and try to grab onto a trapeze bar. It was a blast! It was pretty far out if you weren't about 6 feet tall. I grabbed the bar with one hand but couldn't hang on. Russ on the other hand climbed up the pole way fast and jumped right away and grabbed the bar no problem! 

Just hangin out

Our group - such a blast!

Of course someone said "do a funny picture" and without telling anyone else Russ timed a perfect jumping picture....just more proof that he was made for me right?

Another day on the farm

I LOVE the Farmers Market. Always. In my dream world I would have a huge garden, lots of veggies, berry bushes, a mini orchard, herbs, my own bee hive (I swear this will happen one day), even some chickens! And every morning I would go out for a nice run or bike ride or something and then come home to take care of my plants while the dew is still fresh on the grass.
THAT dream obviously isn't happening at the moment. So my next best thing would be to buy everything at the Farmers Market. That STILL isn't 100% realistic, but I like to go and get a few things.

This Saturday I got to the market at about 10:00 (after an awesome spin class, i'm still sore) and was looking for a few things. For about a year I've been itching to can some peaches and pears; something about doing that just says home and fall and cozy and safe. So I was on the lookout for a killer deal on peaches. Well I found one! There was one farms little booth that had a big excess of their lemon elberta peaches and so they were only $10 a box! I've been keeping up on prices for a while so I knew I wouldn't find cheaper. I told the 2 ladies working there that I would pull my car up in about 20 minutes to get the box. Meanwhile on my way to the car I picked up some amazing pineapple salsa, a watermelon and a few apples and pears.  (I love the people working at the market, a lot of them are native spanish speakers and it's so fun to speak spanish with them! It's amazing how many of them realize I served a mission and then so genuinely thank me for doing that...I love latin people!)

Here's my treasure trove

As I pulled up behind this little booth to pick up my peaches the 2 ladies were kind of franticly running around to get things done and I realized that one of them was leaving so the other would be there by herself with lots of work to do! Before I knew it she leaned over to me and said
"are you in a hurry right now?"
"no"
"will you go to the store and buy some more sample size cups for me? I'll give you those peaches for free"
...umm no brainer. She gave me some cash and I was in the grocery store in no time.

When I got back she (her name is Chelsie) was by herself and so busy! So I just asked her if she needed any help. With a relieved face she gladly accepted. So there I was sorting peaches, nectarines & apples, answering questions about the different types, putting together boxes, pouring samples of the most amazing apple juice etc etc.  It was so fun!! Seriously I was loving it. Then this old man named Greg randomly jumped in and was helping us too! It was nice to do a little bit of service and get a little different taste of the Farmers Market.

My new friends Greg and Chelsie

So when I was getting ready to leave at like 12:45 Chelsie wouldn't let me pay her for anything! By now I was getting 2 boxes of peaches and a bag of nectarines. After some convincing I finally convinced her to let me pay her the $7 for a gallon of that amazing apple juice. So I got 2 boxes of peaches, a bag of nectarines and the apple juice for just 7 dollars!
Win.
Thanks for the adventure Farmers Market.

Now our house is full of fruit, lots of peaches in the freezer for smoothies, others waiting to be made into jam and tons to be canned! Can't wait.

I love making watermelon bowls :)

Mr. Engineer

Guess who is the newest employee at 4D Engineering?

You guessed it.

This guy.

This whole thing kind of happened in a blink of eye. Sometime last week they called Russ about his application and said they would be interviewing in the next few weeks. Then on Tuesday they called to ask if he could interview on Thursday afternoon. If you know Russ then you know that he loves expressing himself verbally....NOT. So we were definitely coming up with as many potential questions they might ask him as we could! It was kind of fun asking him questions actually. Also we both were like "in every interview I go to they ask me about what questions I have for them at the end and most of the time I can't think of anything and draw and blank and kind of look like an idiot" so we also made sure we thought about what he really wanted/needed to know from them. 

Thursday he went to the interview and as soon as he got back I was of course asking him for every detail! He felt really good about and was surprised that they hardly asked any tough questions at all! They seemed to like him and Russ liked the way the engineering firm is set up. But he was telling me that "well they though my resume rocked so they didn't need to ask alot...oooor they already found their guy so they were just hurrying through my interview" (always so humble). They told him they would probably get back to him early next week sometime.

Well wasn't I surprised when I got out of class on Friday (the very next day!) and had a text from Russ saying he got the job!!! WAHOO!!!! So proud of that smart guy :)

The awesome thing about this job is that they aren't just looking for an intern but someone who can be a long time employee. Sounds great to us!

He's hardworking, smart AND good looking!

Let the birthdays continue

Today is my big brother Ben's birthday, the old man is turning 31! But i'll definitely be one of the first to tell you that this guy is a kid at heart.
So here is a few random facts about Ben, why I love him, admire him, and hope that he has a GREAT birthday!

John Mayer Concert 2008 - our wedding gift to Ben. He makes everything fun.

I grew up playing sports with my brothers. When I was in elementary Ben & I played in the backyard everyday. He was always making up games. We even had a 1v1 wiffle ball world series in the backyard and he would mow the lawn with base paths and everything.

Ben has always been supportive of me in everything I do.

These 3 helped me SO much on my mission, don't know what I would do without them. Heroes.

Ben the business man. Not only is he an attorney but also always has some creative project going on. This is him at their "Peaches & Cream" booth at the Utah State Fair. If you go to the fair this week be sure to go get your ice cream and peaches from Ben and Ali!

He's also a marathon man. I love that when Ben sets his mind to doing something you know that he will somehow accomplish it no matter what.

He's a hard worker. Here he is covered in mud helping to get the yard ready for our wedding.

Isn't he handsome?

Ben LOVES his grandma. It is great to see how much he values her and has always counted her as one of his best friends.

He's just a good brother.

Have I mentioned how he always has been and still is a beast on the basketball court? 

He has a beautiful family, and they're adding a new baby girl this December! I can't wait to watch him to be a great dad.

There he is on the right...how could you resist those dimples?

I love you Ben! Hope that you have an excellent birthday!!!