January 15, 2012

Today was a sad, sad day for Packer fans world-wide (because we all know there are a lot of Packer fans in Croatia and India and other places all over the world). Our thought-to-be amazing Packers who were almost undefeated all season lost the first game of the playoffs. It was pretty depressing. I don't know who played in that game but it wasn't the same team I watched all season. The most impressive thing was that it didn't ruin Eric's entire week, or even his whole day. I love that about Eric. He loves the Packers, but he isn't emotionally ruled by them like a lot of people are. Haha. Don't worry, despite this loss we are still Packer fans, Eric for life, me for... my whole married life. :)

January 14, 2012

This weekend our good friends Shane and Jadyn came to stay with us. We went out for chocolate milk... as is Eric and Shane's tradition, and we had a lot of fun playing Cranium with them. We talked and laughed until 1:00 in the morning. Fun times!

January 13, 2012

Friday the 13th. Nothing unlucky happened to Eric or I today. I guess we're lucky...

January 12, 2012

This is Eric and I training for our Olympic skating routine. You'll find us taking the gold medal in Russia come 2014. The Hammonds have graciously offered to let us practice at their outdoor ice skating rink. :) My dad freezes the whole pond over several inches thick, plows the whole thing with his 4-wheeler, and even invented a zamboni! We had a lot of fun skating with my dad today.

January 11, 2012

Tonight Eric took me to my favorite restaurant Biaggi's. It's the same restaurant we went to on our first date in Utah and the night he proposed to me. Very romantic restaurant. Haha. Love Italian food. Love Eric.

January 10, 2012

One of my favorite things is laying in bed talking to Eric. Most of the time we don't get to see each other all day and sometimes all evening because we both work, so it's wonderful to come home and laugh and catch up before we call it a day.

January 9, 2012

Reason why I love Eric #647: Before I left for work this morning I left this setup on our bed. Eric and I call our Build-a-Bears our kids all the time as a joke... so I posed them like this and wrote "Dad, Mom said we could play on the bed!!"

When I got home that night I found Honey and Douglas in the corner with a note that said, "Well I'm home now and you're grounded."

January 8, 2012

Today we went Bridesmaid dress shopping! We found the dresses Macy loved at the first store we went to. Macy continues to be the one-stop-shopping bride. It was fun to try on a bunch of pretty dresses and to laugh with my mom and Macy. I think the girl who was helping us probably thought we were pretty weird... but then... we are. :)

January 7, 2012

Quick, take a picture!! It looks like winter outside for a minute!! If you're not in Utah, you may as well be... we haven't really had a winter this year. Every once in a while it snows... but then it's gone within a day or so. Eric is always wonderful to shovel the driveway. On this particular occasion it turned into a little snowball fight in which nearly all of my snowballs flew past Eric and I got clobbered. It was only a little snowball fight because I finally retreated inside the hosue. :) I love my husband.

January 6, 2012

We went on a triple date this evening with Brad & Macy and 2 of Brad's friends in West Valley. We all went out to dinner together at Zupas, and then had a pretty hilarious time playing Cranium back at their apartment. It was fun to get to know some new friend and to spend time with Brad and Macy!

January 5, 2012

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Eric gets up around 5:30 and goes to play basketball with his old ward. Today he got slammed into the wall by accident and injured himself. Ouch.

January 4, 2012

For date night tonight we went camping in the living room! I set it up while Eric was at work for a surprise and it was really fun! The tent ended up being larger than I thought it was... so it took up the ENTIRE living room. We slept on an air mattress inside of the tent with the sleeping bags we bought ourselves for our wedding. :) The camping trip was complete with tin foil stars on the ceiling, a cricket soundtrack, tinfoil dinners and cobbler with our camping chairs in the kitchen, and even a tissue paper "campfire". It was a great date night. We played card games and watched a movie inside our fancy shmancy tent!

January 3, 2012

Well, I thought today I'd do a virtual tour of our home sweet home. :) Most of you have never been to our apartment, so here's what it looks like! It's tiny, but we LOVE it, and it's just perfect for us right now. This is coming in the front door. Bedroom on the right, living room on the left.

Our lovely living room!

The other side of the living room, with the open door leading to the kitchen.

Our bedroom. Not much fits in there other than the bed. Lol. But we managed to fit a dresser and 2 endtables in there as well.

Kitchen!

The very small bathroom. If one of us is in there, it's pretty tricky to get the other one of us in there in the morning when we're both trying to get ready. Haha. If Eric is at the sink, I can open the door just enough to get my makeup out of the tupperware drawers. This is why I get ready at the kitchen sink. Haha! That's our home!

January 2, 2012

For Family Home evening we had another round of emergency preparedness... although this time it was intentional, unlike the power-outage cooking experience. ;) Eric and I put together 72-hour kits, and wondered for a while how nasty those dried shrink-wrapped military meals really taste. But hey, in case of an emergency, they'll keep us alive. Lol.

January 1, 2012

Happy New Year! We had a great time spending the New Year with Jade and Libby. We watched 'The Prestige' at our apartment, played some games with Eric when he came home, counted down the new year and had sparkling cider! On New Year's Day Jade and Libby came to church with Eric and I. 2011 was the best year of my life, and 2012 is gonna be the best year yet!

December 31, 2011

On New Year's Eve, Eric had to work... so I invited Jade and Libby to come have a sleepover with us at our apartment and to hang out with me that evening. We thought it would be fun to go out to dinner at the Garden to visit Eric, and then the rest of my family decided to join us! What a party!

December 30, 2011

This is where I spend about 50% of my waking hours. FotoFly in Draper. It's a fabulous job. Just thought you should see what it looks like. You can even check out some of our work if you want at Fotofly.com. :)

December 29, 2011

Tonight was our annual FotoFly Christmas party. I have such amazing co-workers. I really am lucky to work in such a great atmosphere with such fabulous people. I had fun celebrating with them tonight... although everyone was pretty bummed that Eric couldn't make it because of work.

December 28, 2011

I made this fancy little guy for Eric for breakfast this morning. That's love. It reminds me of the Brave Little Toaster for some reason. Haha

December 27, 2011

The Ridd family (my mom's family) Christmas party. It was fun... I really didn't sleep the whole time... but this picture makes me laugh because Brad (Macy's fiancee) bit me right after the blessing on the food, which made me scream, which made everyone look at us, when then made us all laugh. Darn Brad. Lol

December 26, 2011

I hate taking down Christmas. I always leave it up until New Years because I think it's so sad when Christmas is over. Who would want to take down the beautiful new tree, put away the pine-scented candle, or throw away the carefully decorated gingerbread house??? Not me.

December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful time with both the Hammonds and the Merrills this Christmas. It was so wonderful to spend the holiday with our families. We have the best family in the world! On Christmas evening we had our own little Christmas back at home. We opened our gifts for each other and video taped our celebration. It was the best Christmas I've ever had.

December 24, 2011

This is at the Merrill family Christmas party. Santa came to visit us! It was really fun. ALL of the grandkids got to sit on Santa's lap... including Eric and his brothers... and even me! Haha this picture always makes me laugh. Santa gave us all gifts. You can see that I got a nice little candle but bad Eric and Kyle got bags of coal. Haha. I think my favorite part is that Eric looks sad that he got caught being bad... while Kyle looks like he's reveling in the fact that he was naughty. Haha

Lots of excitement this Christmas Eve! My little Macy is ENGAGED!!! Who can believe it?! Her now-fiancee Brad came to our house to surprise her on the night before Christmas. (She was under the impression that he was in Arizona for Christmas with his family) He showed up to our house very well disguised as Santa, pulled out a special package for Macy, and then got down on one knee and tore off the beard and hat when she found she had opened a ring box. He asked her to marry him and it was BEAUTIFUL and she said YES and they're getting MARRIED! April 27th!

December 23, 2011

Sadly I missed this evening because I had to work AGAIN... but Eric and my sisters had a fun pizza night together while my parents were out on a date!

December 22, 2011

Eric is taking classes this week to certify to be a CNA. He goes to class all week for 10 hours a day and then he has a few ...labs... for lack of a better word where he goes to assist in resting homes and get some practical experience that way. After he certifies, he'll be an EMT and a CNA, which provides him with a lot more job opportunities in his field. Go Eric!

December 21, 2011

This week Eric and I have been staying with the Hammonds because Eric is taking a CNA course in Sandy and I continue to work full-time... so it just made sense to be closer so that we didn't both have to commute so far. It has admittedly been a long week. Eric and I have hardly seen each other because I've had all evening shifts while his classes are all in the morning and afternoon. So we're seeing each other for about 20 minutes each day, and then we go to bed. :( But I'm so grateful I get to be with him for even a short amount of time every day.

December 20, 2011

Today my Dad and I went shopping for ice skates. There's a big Hammond ice skating party coming up, so we went on a quest for lots of pairs of used ice skates.

December 19, 2011

Today was my day off of work, so I got to go ice skating with my family! The pond freezes over more than 5 inches thick! My dad has pretty much mastered making the pond incredibly smooth and then he plows it with the four-wheeler. Seriously. We had a great time ice skating!

December 18, 2011

Today was a lot of fun. My family and Macy's boyfriend Brad came up to have dinner with us in our tiny little apartment. They still haven't seen it since we've had everything moved in and put away, plus, it was their turn for Sunday dinner. So instead of going down to their house, we invited them up to our house and packed 9 people into our living room. Haha. Eric and I made shrimp scampi and we all had a lovely dinner together. Then we played games, watched 'It's a Wonderful Life', and made cookie monsters... all in our tiny little house. Haha. We even had seating for everyone! It was a wonderful evening!

December 17, 2011

We make herbal tea fairly often in our fancy red tea kettle. On more than one occasion, Eric has gone to make himself a cup of tea and asked me if I want some. I said no, he made the tea, and then for whatever reason I changed me mind and decided I want some. And what had Eric done? He had already boiled extra water because he knew I'd change my mind. That's love. ;)

December 16, 2011

Family Night! Mom (Chris) bought us this pre-built gingerbread house to decorate! Pre-built. I've never heard of such a thing in my life. Well, we decorated it pretty cute! Eric did that whole tree... which was NOT pre-built. Very skilled, very skilled.

December 15, 2011

Tonight we went to see my dear friend Angela in her play 'Lil Abner'. She was by far the best actress up there. It was a hoot!

December 14, 2011

This handsome hunk of a man works at the Garden Restaurant on the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Ask anyone; he's the most attractive, funniest, most helpful waiter anyone's ever seen on this side of the rocky mountains. And man, look at those guns!!!

December 13, 2011

Family prayer. And have I ever mentioned how much I love it when Eric holds my hand?

December 12, 2011

Our washing machine is... special to say the least. It will wash the load, drain it, fill it with rinse water, slosh it around for a while... and then quit. So the end result is clean clothes in a tank of water. Luckily, Eric figured out early on that if you switch it to another cycle at that point, it will continue on through the spin cycle and most of the time the clothes don't come out dripping wet. But you know what, I'm just really grateful we have a washing machine for free. It came with the apartment and we get to use it until it falls apart. That's pretty great, special washer or normal washer.

December 11, 2011

Aside from 'Hook' these are two of Eric's most quoted movies. They've been favorites since he was little. So of course we watched them since it's Christmas time... and I was cracking up listening to Eric laugh throughout the movie and quote his favorite lines. What a kid. :)

December 10, 2011

My family took Eric and I to 'The Forgotten Carols' play!! I have loved this play since I was young. We had a tradition for many years of my dad reading the book to our family on Christmas Eve. Then we started watching the play on DVD, and this year we got to see the play live! It was wonderful! It was such a wonderful way to bring in the true spirit of Christmas and focus on the Savior. I laughed and cried... and cried a little more. I will always treasure that play with its message and music!

December 9, 2011

Still sick. But armed with daytime and nighttime cold medicine along with a good bag of cough drops, I'm ready to take on the world without sneezing every 3 minutes!

December 8, 2011

Totally sick. Last thing I knew it was just a sore throat. Then when Eric and I went to the temple today, my nose turned into Niagara Falls in the middle of the endowment session. It was so embarassing. I soaked the 4 tissued I had brought with me and then had to accept more tissues from the ladies on either side of me. I wanted to say to them, "I swear it wasn't this bad 30 minutes ago. If i had known I'd be a waterfall I wouldn't have come!" Somehow I survived as it continually got worse and when we got home Eric put me in bed, made me tomato soup and his hot lemon honey water remedy. What a sweetheart.

December 7, 2011

Funny story: last night I sat up in my sleep in the middle of the night, which woke Eric up. He asked what I was doing. I turned to him and moaned "I can't make her smile!!" I wonder if Eric had to try not to laugh as he convinced me I was dreaming and tried to get me to lie down. "It's okay it's just a dream." I laid back down and said, "I know but in my dream I can't get her to smile and I can't stop dreaming it!" Haha. I live, breathe, and dream FotoFly. For those of you who are still confused, I work at a portrait studio called FotoFly down in Draper where I chase kids around and make them laugh all day. Apparently this one was a tough customer. ;)

December 6, 2011

This is our lovely first Christmas setup! So much fun! Only 19 days till CHRISTMAS!!