Springtime, Ring-a-Ding Time!

Ah, Spring. The flowers are blooming,

there are eggs to be colored,

and Crocs are on sale.

Yes, that last one was right. There was some big warehouse sale on Crocs a while back here in town. It was a little ridiculous. People rode buses over from the mall to stand in lines that went around the building!
I didn't see it but Allen said people were leaving with garbage bags full of Crocs. I couldn't believe the extremities people were going to for these "shoes". It takes all kinds I guess.
The daffodils above are what the mystery plants turned out to be. They were so pretty until the darn snow came and killed them! It was so sad.
And the eggs! We had a very nice first Easter together. The Easter Bunny brought something special for Allen:
He seemed pretty happy with his basket. It had plenty of Reese's Eggs, a monkey with bunny ears, a chicken that walks and lays eggs, and some gummi Krabby Pattys. We also had a yummy Easter dinner.
I made the ham, asparagus, and hollandaise sauce. Allen made the fruit salad and Au Gratin potatoes. The potatoes aren't on the table yet because they took a little extra time to cook. Allen didn't want to read the directions, but decided to go ahead and put a lid on the potato dish. He also got creative with the fruit salad. I had just planned on doing strawberries and bananas, but he added kiwi and coconut. It turned out really well, super yummy!
Since we don't have kids yet and no one to hide eggs for, we just did our egg dying on Sunday night. We had fun with it though!
I wanted a nice dark pink egg . . .
so I waited, and waited . . .
but it took so long!
Allen had a vision for one of his eggs. We got some sports wrap-arounds with a soccor one which he, of course, wanted to use. Unfortunatly, I bought eggs that were too big! We couldn't get the wrap-arounds on the eggs! He wasn't about to let that stop him though.
He sat and worked on it for most of the time I was dying other eggs. Sure enough, he finally got it!
Then he added a little Liverpool red, and the masterpiece was complete.

Backyard, Banana Bread, and a Calling

A couple weeks ago I was in the backyard and noticed a little green peeking out from under a substantial amount of fallen leaves. So, since the weather has been fairly nice more often than not lately, I decided to get out and find out what was under all those leaves. Having grown up in Arizona and New Mexico, raking leaves was more of a foreign experience to me than I really care to admit at 23 years old. In fact, I don't think I've ever done it! But I actually enjoyed it, it was nice to get out and enjoy the weather and was exciting to uncover the green. I still don't know what it is that's growing, but there are about three or four different plants.

One of them seems like it's getting ready to bloom so maybe then I'll know what it is.

Gigi also loved to have me in the backyard with her. When we first moved in she loved the backyard and wanted to be outside all the time, but I think she got bored with it because she hasn't been as into it. Until I went out with her! She was so funny, super happy just running around and around and throwing her toys at me. Here she is in a still moment.


My latest fascination is my breadmaker. I LOVE it! It took a while for me to get around to using it mostly just because I was so intimidated by the book of an instruction manual. But I had some bananas that were getting brown so I knew it was time to get out the book and the machine and make some banana bread. Once I read everything and did the prep work for the machine (you have to wash everything and let it run once empty) it was so easy! Plus, I found out it can even make jam! I bought some pears to make some jam out of them and I am so excited! I've also decided that I want to make bread a lot more often, it's just so yummy! The banana bread came out really good and moist.
The only thing I would have changed about the recipe is to add walnuts. Still good though, we ate it right up! Or, I ate it up. Allen was upset that he only got a few slices so I got some more bananas and told him I would make more.

Allen got his new calling this week! He was called a week ago and sustained yesterday. He was called as the second counselor in the Sunday School Presidency. Neither of us know what that means he'll actually be doing, but he's excited and I'm so proud of him. I know he'll do a great job and his service will bring blessings to both of us.

Here We Are!

We have arrived in the blogging world. So here's a quick recap of what we've been up to since the wedding:

First was, of course, the Honeymoon. We went to Disneyland and had a blast! We drove there, but it wasn't too bad because we spaced it over two days. It was really nice to have that time just to ourselves after all the chaos of the wedding. We spent about three and a half days in the parks so we had time to see and do pretty much everything.

Then it was time to head back to New Mexico for moving.

We spent a couple of days in Albuquerque cleaning out my old apartment and getting everything loaded up. We used my parents' horse trailer, their Suburban, and my little Honda. Much to the surprise of everyone, we were able to fit all of my furniture (bed, kitchen table, chairs, dresser, shelves, etc.) and all of my boxes plus wedding gifts! My dad wasn't able to make the trip with us so Mom and my sister, Elyse, hauled the trailer. Then our brother-in-law Jake came with his brother Andy to help us unload. Moving is such a huge task and we were so lucky to have so many helping hands! There's no way we could have done it without all the help, thanks guys!

Our Little Love Nest

Since then we've pretty much just been settling into life in Colorado. I'm still working on getting everything unpacked and the house set up the way I want it. Since it's a rental and we'll only be here for a year I have a hard time deciding if I really want to put in the money, time and effort I would if we owned it. Painting, for example, seems a little overwhelming. Especially considering we'd just have to repaint when it's time to leave. On the other hand, I do want to make our home a nice place to be.

We have a very nice ward here and we're trying to really get involved. We've been invited to different Family Home Evenings the past two weeks and there was another couple/family invited to each as well. They've been a lot of fun and it's so good to meet new people. Our Bishop came over last night to visit with us and we really like him, he's a very friendly man. In talking to him we discovered that he was the Home Teacher for a family my parents have been good friends with since before I was even born! Such a small world!

So there's a pretty thorough general update. Usually they won't be this long, but I thought I'd do a little overview for everyone.