2009- 2010

DECEMBER:
A couple days after Josh finished finals we headed over to Utah to spend time in Ogden with his family. We had fun playing games, playing with the nieces and nephew, cooking, eating fruit by the foots, seeing the little village in Ogden even though it was freezing outside, watching movies, going to see Princess and the Frog/ Sherlock Holmes, walking around the Salt Lake Temple and more. Here are picture of the little ones. I miss them all.




Also in December my brother proposed to his girlfriend Dana and she said yes! We are really excited for them to get married and it is a blessing to see how happy they are together. Dana, sorry we couldn't be there for the break to get to know you better, but we look forward to getting to know you well soon. You two are great together.


JANUARY:
So far we have just been having fun hanging out with each other this year. Josh goes back to school on Wednesday so we have been enjoying the time off. I am actively looking for a new job, preferably one that pays me to work, so that has taken me lots of time. Josh gave a talk on Sunday about goals, so I'll tell you some we've set, or rather one that I've set, because I feel a greater need to tell others so that it pushes me to actually accomplish it. My goal is to run a marathon in June. I am not doing so hot right now, but I really want to do this, so I will, even if it is hard. My mom did a marathon 10 years ago and that's when I decided to one. She also just finished a half marathon and I can't believe how strong she is, she is amazing!

I just joined goodreads.com and so far I love it. It is nice to see what my friends have said about books so I know better what's good to read. I only have one friends so far, so if anyone else is on come be my friend. I have challenged myself to read 50 books this year, that is a lot, and I may not get even close, but I like reading so even if I only get 10 I'll be okay with that.

I know this is long, but I just wanted to post one more thing. My new favorite treat. I know it is winter and there is still some snow outside, but I like ice and cold treats such as ice cream, so Josh and I found this recipe for water ice. It may not be Rita's, but I think it is good, I may just not be as familiar with good water ice as I should be, considering I've only had it once, but I enjoy it, so I'm posting the recipe. It is really easy and it comes out really creamy.

Lemon Water Ice

1 qt water
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup lemon juice
Grated rind of 1 lemon (no white part)

Boil water and sugar together for 5 minutes. Cool. Stir in juice and peel. Pour into shallow bowl and put in freezer. As it starts to freeze, keep stirring the outside crystals into the center and mix in peel. Do about every half hour. When real slushy, stop and freeze overnight. To serve, you must scrape very thin layers of the slush off the top.

It took about an hour to start freezing and get slushy, but once it started then it only too like 2 hours to get to where I stopped stirring it and let it freeze overnight. Maybe I'm crazy, but I love it...

Photoshop

Since I am oh so busy at work... I wish I was, but since I'm not I have a lot of time at home to do housework and other stuff. I have been really enjoying playing around with photoshop. Maybe because when I look at a picture of me I tend to see things I'd like to change,so I do. I try not to do it too much to where I alter the photo significantly, but there are just so many fun things to do. Anyways, I know this post is really about nothing important, but I am home waiting for Josh to be done studying for the day and I had nothing else to do.
During Thanksgiving I took a picture of my brother Conner that I really liked. It was after we ate at his favorite place- J-dawgs. The old shed has a great red wall and I had to take a picture. After I took 2 pictures Conner got too embarrassed and we were done. Here it is the final product... And I know, I tell really good stories!

A Very Utah Thanksgiving

We returned yesterday from our trip to Utah.  We went not because we could afford it, but rather because it my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary and the whole Gillette family was getting together.  With 75 people in attendance we held Thanksgiving dinner in a cultural hall.  We had fun playing games each night and playing ultimate frisbee.  You can't have a Gillette get-together and not have an ultimate game, it really is not possible. My favorite game was around-the-world ping pong.  I felt like I did better at this game than at just standing and playing regular ping pong.  I'll included a few videos, one where a good rally got going, and the other shows how fast we had to run to get to the other side, unfortunately for Josh he didn't get good placement.

When we first arrived in Utah we met my family at the Salt Lake temple.  We walked around the visitors center and then watched the Joseph Smith movie.  I love that movie, it touches me each time I watch it.

On Wednesday night my family went to a David Archuleta concert!!! 32 family members in attendance and it was fun.  It was a Christmas concert, but he did start off by singing some of his own songs, so I had to dance with my tween cousins to zero gravity.

Thurday was spent doing Thanksgiving and games, and then Friday we went up to Ogden to celebrate Josh's dad's birthday.  We had an amazing meal full of seafood, so good.  I ate way too much that night.

When we decided to go to Utah we told my brother to see if he could find us some tickets to the BYU v. Utah football game.  Since I ahdn't heard much I thought he didn't get them, but he was amazing and got us two tickets!  The game was great, it was so fun to be back in the stadium.  I loved that the team wore their throwback jerseys, the royal blue looked awesome! It was cold, so I was pretty sad when they took it into overtime, but it was nice and quick and BYU WON! We decided not to rush the field with everyone but we still had fun.

It was a great trip.  I am grateful we were able to go and enjoy the time we had together.  Josh is now studying for finals and I don't think I'll see much of him until December 11, the date of his last final.

Around the World videos

New Moon

I know I know... I probably shouldn't have, but I was invited and therefore of course I went.  Since I didn't have to worry about getting up early for work I decided to have fun and go to the midnight showing of new moon. We were there 2 hours before so we passed the time by playing speed scrabble on the floor.  I had fun and had no problem staying awake, even though I do tend fall asleep during any movie if it is started after 9pm.  Here's a picture I stole from Alexandria.

Alexandria, me, Ashley, Kaley, and Debbie

  

Now I have to go get everything ready to leave for Utah tomorrow! I am so excited to go and see my family.

I finally put some pictures on our walls.  We were able to get one wall painted for free, so we decided to paint the big wall in our living room.  We had about 12 choices, but we decided to do it a gold-ish color.  We've had it painted now for a couple of weeks, but I didn't know how to hang the pictures, I'm not sure I love it yet, but hopefully I will, or hopefully I'll think of some better way.  I couldn't get the whole room in the picture, but since there isn't anything else to see, I just cut it all out..

The first Saturday of the month is free museum day, so we decided to go to the Denver Art Museum.  It was packed, but I enjoyed it.  We have now decided that when we own a house we will have a totem pole outside, because they are awesome! After walking around for too long we decided to leave, but not before Josh found the kids play area and decided to dress up like a crocodile.  I know he'll be really happy that I posted this picture, but it made me smile, so you all get to see it! I can't say we'll be going back to the museum anytime soon, but the buildings were really neat.

I am so excited to have something real to post next week! Like the David Archuleta Concert!!  YES!!

Happenings

I love living in Colorado! People are so nice.  I'm not really used to it yet, but I love it! Everyone in our ward is so kind and we have been invited to so many homes to play games or do other fun stuff.  It is nice having friends so quickly.

So WICKED is here in Denver for a couple of weeks.  So we took the light rail to downtown (very interesting ride on the train, funny people..) and attempted to do the wicked lottery on Friday night and even though we were the first in line, which should mean we get tickets, our names weren't drawn.  We had fun anyways though, as we were waiting for them to draw the names we went down the street to get some hot chocolate.  We were told it was going to take a little bit because he had to make more chocolate mix so we waited, we were fine, we got to sit inside where it was warm! We ended up getting our hot chocolate for free because we had to wait! It was worth it! Josh also treated me to a nice dinner at the Cheese Cake Factory where we got free sample of the pumpkin cheesecake! SO GOOD! I got a HUGE salad, not realizing how big it was, and the waiter made a weird face at me when he asked me if I wanted to take some of it home, um I guess he didn't realize he was talking to me because I eat all my food and half a piece of cheesecake.  Yes, I felt very fat that day, but it was worth it.

So, more about food.  Since I work mostly at nights, after Josh gets home, I am trying to make more stuff in my crockpot so food can be warm when he gets home, and then still when I get home.  I have gotten many recipe books from the library that have helped, but do you know of any good easy crockpot recipes that you'd be willing to share? Thanks!

Oh, this is a picture I got of Josh while we waited for our hot chocolate.  I was trying to document our journey, but he insists on not smiling and not helping me in my documentation... He better change soon because I just became the ward historian... in other words, I am the picture taker at ward activities. perfect job.