Wii !!!!!!

We got home from our vacation on New Year's Eve. So I immediately made Steve open his Christmas present. I'd been keeping this secret for about a month and it was killing me! It was especially hard since we played the Wii alot while we were in Indiana. I kept having to say things like, "Well maybe we can get a Wii from our tax return" or "When we're rich we'll get a Wii."

But little did he know that I had a little extra saved up by a twist of fate. And I got him a Wii!!! For the first time since we've been married, I actually surprised him with a gift! It. was. AWESOME!!! And needless to say, he was really excited about it!

I also have a video of him opening the gift and being really surprised, but videos won't work. So, we'll see what happens.

Wiiiiiiiiiiii !!!!!!!!!

Treasures

One of the best parts about the holidays is getting to be with friends and family a whole lot!!!

We got to see aunts and cousins! (And now Jenny had her baby and I can't wait until we can meet HIM!)

Of course, we had a meeting of friends at Monical's! That was a heap of fun! The 3 Amigos!

And friend! [hehe]

Then when we were leaving Monical's another night, we randomly saw THESE GUYS!!! That was awesome!

The night before we left we played Just Dance and then decided to take some fun pictures!

(I LOVE that sweet little grin with the slightly Asian looking eyes! Wait... a blonde Asian??)

The boy that amazes me with how he's grown. I think it's just because he was the first nephew, and I remember back in the day when he was just born. And that's weird, like whoa.

The girl that gave me a FANTASTIC manicure with sparkly nail polish.

The boy that cracked us up with his jumping bean feet when we plays video games. Sooo silly!

Oh, family!

And this is the nerd brother. [teehee] I think he was trying out our new camera and the front screen thing where you can look at yourself.

JUST DANCE!

One of the presents that my nieces and nephews got for Christmas was Just Dance 2. So, of course, we had to try it out!!!

Look at those SKILLZZZ!!!

I was amazed by some of the scores these kids were getting on this game! It was nuts!

Even Grandpa got in on some of the fun of dancing. But he was cheating a little bit...


And then we did some boxing. That game tires you out after just one round!

So we had lots of fun playing the Wii!

I tried to put one of the videos of us dancing on here. But it just freezes the whole thing and won't even let me post it. So I'll have to try again another time.

Indy Christmas!

Well, we were lucky and able to get enough work off to go to Indiana for Christmas this year. I'll probably be the last trip for a while because we're planning on going to school during the summers until we are totally done!

So here we are on Christmas morning. We look so glamorous!

I got the family picture calendar! I was excited because last year mine got lost in the mail! I've enjoyed using it so far this year! :)

Steven and Dad got pillow ties from the family. Sooo funny!!! And Steve just wore it to church last week and was showing it off to all his friends.

Here is just me and mom being friends. Woo!!!

I couldn't decide which cute pictures to put up of all the kids, so I just chose none. But they are in lots of pictures later, so it'll all work out.

P.S. I got a new camera for Christmas! So now I can learn all the cool things it does and make better pictures!! YAY!

Happy Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was pretty relaxed and lots of fun. We went over to our Aunt and Uncle and ate and played games. It was fun just to hang out.
But we were assigned to bring rolls for the dinner. And we got the frozen kind that come in little balls of dough. We decided to make them 2 two a cupcake cup like the instructions say, instead of a whole bunch in a pan. After they had risen for a while, we got this Thanksgiving surprise in our kitchen! I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

They did taste delicious though!

Please excuse us...

No, we did not pass gas.

But you must excuse the lack in blogs lately. We have things to share, just not enough time or energy to share it yet. I'm hoping to catch up over the long weekend for Thanksgiving. [Although I still have many things to do over the long weekend.]

We've just been studying, working, taking tests, sleeping, and then starting all over again. It's absolutely insane and our house always seems like a disaster zone. Once again, something I can do over the weekend, right?

I hope you are all doing well and are ready for this weekend of gratitude! Hopefully we can update you on our oh-so-exciting [but not so exciting] life! :)

Halloween Fun

This semseter has been so busy that we really had to work to get carving pumpkins to fit in the schedule. It was really squeezed in. So here we are.


My stencil.

He's observing the damage.

Hard work!

Steve's bat.

My owl.

Friends.

We were supposed to add twigs so it looked like my owl was sitting on a branch and like Steve's bat was hanging from a tree. But we were satisfied with them like this.

We also got some candles on clearance ON Halloween because we forgot to buy some earlier. And we were actually excited about them because they said they were supposed to "fog" when they were lit. Do you think that ever happened? No. At least they were on clearance.

Friends foreverrrr!

We went to Will and Kristin's for a party and I had to ask Kaydence to model her butterfly costume for me. It was pretty cute. It helps when you have a cute girl in the costume.And the wings.

Steve's work let them dress up the day before Halloween. He decided to be a tourist. We had another party that night where I dressed as a tourist too. But we forgot to get a picture. :( We were one hot couple, let me tell ya. [Don't you LOVE the socks with the flip-flops? Even though you can't see it, his socks are Mt. Rushmore socks. We put alot of thought into this!]

Hope you had fun collecting candy! :)

State Fair

It's weird because in Utah, the state fair is in September. So going to the state fair and eating a lot of junk was my birthday present. Yippee!!! Will and Kristin came with us too. Sadly, I think my camera died -- or I just forgot to take a picture of us because I was so excited to EAT! But we saw a hypnotist that was HILARIOUS. We saw a few minutes of a seal show. And a few minutes of an exotic animal show. We saw all the animals and some of the 4-H stuff. It was fun, and oddly not as different from Indiana's state fair as I thought it would be. But they didn't have the train to ride around in. :(

So here is Kaydence being not so sure about petting the baby cow. I think she eventually did pet it.

And then we went to the ride part. The ride part was never really my thing when we went to the fair. But I know that the rides and games are the main reason other people go. So Will and Kristin wanted to take Kaydence on this HUGE slide. There was a bigger one, but this was the kiddy one -- which was still huge.

And here they come! I think they ended up going on this like 6 times because Kaydence did like it alot!

OH! Also - I turned 23. YAY! My neighbor made this cake for me. And I felt special because she said she usually hates making cakes for people. And those fun candles were all different colors when we lit them. It was really cool. My camera did die for that sadly.

Family Cabin

So Steve's extended family has this cabin in Idaho that we use for reunions and gatherings of all types. It's pretty handy and alot of fun! So over the summer our little Harkness family went up there for the 24th of July. Here we are doing some cleasing masks.
[I looked pained because my face was too stiff to smile all the way.]

Steve's brother Will has a little dunebuggy thingy that he brings up to ride around when we go up there. It's alot of fun. Kristin was lending me her helmet so I could have a cute one. But if you can't tell ... Kristin has a little bit smaller head than I do.

This is me doing my "Hi. My name is Chubby." story.

Then later in the summer we went up to the cabin for an extended family gathering. One of our uncles has four wheelers and all kinds of manly toys. So he brought those up and we were convinced that going on a four wheeler trip up the mountain would be a great idea! However, we didn't plan on this and all I brought for shoes was flip-flops. And I only had shorts, no pants.

The trail was INSANE about 15 minutes into the trail I was scared for my life! We were literally on the side of a mountain and the trail's tire tracks were on two different levels. I thought we were going to roll down the mountain. And then on the way down we almost ran into another couple of people coming up the trail. Needless to say, it was a one lane trail and it was fun trying to get out of it.

So we ended up really dirty and my legs got VERY scratched up. Steve's leg got a little burned from being by the engine that was really hot.

Even Steve's teeth got dirt all over them! Gross, right??? I guess we know he's a mouth-breather.

Yay for dirty faces, feet, and teeth!

We met Rita Moreno!

I almost forgot to post this. A weeks or two ago, Steve and I got tickets to see Rita Moreno in concert at the Layton Amphitheatre. IT WAS SO. STINKIN. AWESOME. She was such a great performer, and sooo hilarious. She has fun stories, and we learned alot of information about the early years of broadway from her experiences.

And she's fantastically beautiful and still performs so great for being 77 years old!!! AWESOME!!
So, yes. We stood in the giant line after the show just to get her autograph. I thought it'd be cool since I played Anita in West Side Story in high school. Then I could say that I got the original Anita's autograph! Right? I know!!!

Here's me and my new BFF Rita Moreno. Yeah. Watch out.. we're going on tour together. :)

I also think it'd be funny to share that she was nervous to have her glass of wine in the picture because she said she knew she was in "Mormon country." HAHA! Ok, well it was funny at the moment. And she said she changed some of the words to her songs since she was in Utah. I thought that was silly.

Once again, it made me yearn to be on stage! Also, I was recently reading a friend's blog, and she was saying how she got so sad, pained, etc. when watching people perform in movies, shows, etc. I can totally relate! I started going to school for theatre education... but I knew it wasn't what I needed to be doing after a couple years. However -- my heart aches to be performing again. I definitely wouldn't change any decisions I've made so far in my life, but I guess I need to find another creative outlet... besides scrapbooking. That's just not the same.

So- our first experience meeting a famous person, and she was a Broadway legend!!! Hooray!!!

Mustang Steven!

Steven was also SUPER EXCITED because he got to drive my mom's mustang around town a few times in Indiana. He said this was the first time he had ever even ridden in a convertible - let alone drive one! So here's some fun pictures. :)

We were trying to look like we were driving really really fast.