The things I make Evan do part II

The first two years Evan I were married he spent every Saturday studying. Now that he is in the rotation part of school he gets almost every Saturday off and we just don't know what to do with ourselves. SOooo I decided to do what I use to do as a little kid with my dad and sister...look at model homes (he also took me to Home Depot, but I liked the model homes better). Evan had never done this before and we enjoyed a fun (free) afternoon activity.

New Home?

Evan in the "Den" with his high tech fake computer

WICKED 1.20.11

My wonderful husband bought me tickets to see Wicked for Christmas. He picked January 20 as the day to go since it is the 4th anniversary of our first kiss. Evan isn't that sentimental, but he knows I am so I really appreciate it when he is so thoughtful.

We went to a local Italian restaurant before the show, which was tasty (although my mom makes better pasta shells). We had a bit of an issue of with parking since we didn't have any cash with us-SO frustrating. Then after the show when we went to pay they said we didn't have to! Evan's luck proving useful once again.

Before the show...I barely made it. The line for the bathroom was so long and there was only one in the whole building. I shut the door to the stall and I hear "ONE MINUTE LADIES, ONE MINUTE LADIES." Fastest trip to the ladies room I ever had!

We loved the play. Elphaba was really great. The play was a lot funnier than I expected. I think we had some of the best seats in the house (very last row in the balcony...center). No big heads in front of us and we could hear everything really well. Evan got some cool binoculars for his birthday which takes pictures...So we didn't really know how to use them properly, but here are a couple blurry pictures of OZ

After the show

We had fun dressing up even though most people were wearing jeans.

Gila Valley Temple 1.15.11

Evan and I took a day trip to the Gila Valley Temple. It is just about the same distance to the Mesa temple as it is to the Gila Valley Temple so why not add another to the list of Temples I've visited. As a kid if we were on a road trip we would make it a point to visit the temple in the area. So I have seen the outside of many temples...and the number of inside visits are growing too.

Evan is in front of the doors, but I wanted to get the top of the temple so he is very little. The staff at this Temple were way friendly. The inside was beautiful as one would expect and it had a VERY HUGE GORGEOUS chandelier inside (I told Evan I want one like that in our future house).

After our session we had lunch at a picnic area near the Stake Center. It was a perfect morning.

On our drive home I saw this sign..."Rex Allen" is my nephew's name. How cool is that? It is not uncommon to see a street sign with your name on it, but your first and middle name? pretty crazy...So Heather you can print this picture and frame it for Rex!

Mid January Resolutions

It always takes me a while to come up with resolutions mostly because I want them to not only be meaningful but realistic. Last year my resolutions were to

1. Floss more

2. Eat more vegetables

While I accomplished these goals I don't find much satisfaction in these goals because I didn't make them very measurable. So this year my two goals are more measurable

1. Read at least 6 books this year (I think I read almost 3 books last year so this is quite the jump for me)

2. Get more organized. I consider myself a very organized person, but since our recent moves within Tucson and the fact that we are in a much smaller place has made it very difficult for me to get a hold of my worldly possessions. I have already tackled the bathroom. Organizing the products under the sink and going through and tossing some of my large amounts of hair ribbons and clips. I've started on the closet and have thinned out my winter clothes. The main project will be the desk area. Hopefully "getting organized" will never again be a resolution. Wish me luck

Tucson on the Map

Saturday morning Evan had to work for a few hours and on his way home he gave me a call the conversation went something like this

A: "Hello"

E:"Good Morning, I'm driving home from the hospital now. I decided to head to Best Buy to play some Madden on the way home since I was so close"

A: "Oh sounds like fun"

E: "Yeah. But I was driving on Oracle and there were a bunch of cop cars in front of the Safeway. I was thinking that there was a bank robbery or something because of all the traffic so I pulled over to ask what was going on"

A: "Oh really? Was it just an accident or something?"

E: "Someone shot a congress woman"

A: "WHAT!!"

E: "yeah pretty crazy huh? Some guy just opened fire and started shouting people"

A: "Oh my gosh!! Is she dead?"

E: "I don't know, but it's pretty crazy huh?" (they he preceded to tell me how he was going to get home)

I quickly jumped on the Internet to figure out what was going on and called my mom to see if it was national news. The information was horrifying and at this point the media didn't really know what was going on. Some news casts were reporting the congresswoman dead others said she was in critical condition. When Evan finally made it home we went over to the gym so we could watch the new on TV. The number of victims injured and dead kept rising. It was a pretty odd day as we just watched the news dazed. After the newscasts stopped reporting new information we headed home. We took down the Christmas tree and decorations and that night we watched the movie "Dinner for Schmucks" the first part is funny the rest of it is just silly.

Sunday after church we headed over to the Safeway shopping center to see what was going on (just out of curiosity). The entire shopping center was blocked off with yellow crime scene tape and close to 2 dozen sheriff vehicles lined the perimeter of the shopping center. The intersection was open, but filled with a bunch of looky-lous like us. Across Ina facing the shopping center there were half a dozen media outlets with their vans and cameras.

Even though we live 3 miles from the Safeway and I pass through that intersection weekly as I make my way to the mall, Target, or Best Buy it doesn't seem real that a tragedy of this magnitude happened in my backyard it is still a little unreal.

Here is a link to the AP story of the event http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=13807898

EVAN'S 29th BIRTHDAY!!

I Love Evan's birthday. I love it more than my own birthday. I love that he gets so excited over the littlest things. I love that he is so easy to please. I love being able to serve him and give him a special day.

I woke up early and made Evan breakfast burritos. I would say this is his favorite breakfast ... but I've only made it for dinner! Then I told him I'd meet him for lunch and asked him what he wanted. He replied, "the tuna you made for my lunch yesterday was good." See what I mean he is so easy to please. So I brought him tuna, but I thought that was boring so I also bought him a Chipotle burrito.

Here is the birthday boy at lunch. This is outside the OB/GYN office Evan is rotating at this month in a little courtyard. Before lunch Evan got to see a C-section of a little boy being born. Evan said he doesn't think he'd get sick of watching babies being born. He has really liked this rotation so far.

After work at Black Angus. Thanks to my favorite website, hip2save.com, I signed Evan up for about half a dozen restaurant "birthday clubs." So we had a buy one get one free dinners. Evan ordered the special with steak, lobster tail, and shrimp. Our total ended up being 17.45 before we left a tip!!! I think we'll be going there for my birthday as well. It was way tasty, service was great, and....

They gave Evan a free dessert. Like a real dessert!

I asked Evan what he wanted to do after dinner, maybe see a movie or rent a movie? He said, "How about going to Best Buy and playing Madden!?" See what I mean about being easy to please? So he played Madden, while I watched and played the new Xbox Kinect (SO FUN).

Then we went home and he opened his presents. I made him a quilt with his BYU T-shirts. It's only the top part...but I'll eventually finish it!

Blowing out the candles on his birthday brownies. (and see Chelsey and Morgan...those are shorts not a skirt/kilt)

Snoqualmie Falls

The last day we were in Washington we went to visit Snoqualmie Falls. It was really cold! I have only been there in the summer time. It is was less impressive in the winter since all you can see is the mist and fog coming off the falls. And they have made some changes to the viewing area and have made it more touristy. Lame! Oh well we went to the outlet mall after this and that made up for the disappointing falls.