Girls Weekend

This past weekend I headed up to Seattle to spend a girls weekend with all my sisters-in-law (sister-in-laws? who knows) and Jared's mom. We had a great time shopping, watching movies and just hanging out together. On Friday night we went downtown to see The Nutcracker which was really great, can't believe people, especially men, can move their bodies so gracefully! I was able to get all of my christmas shopping done, and then I spent more money, which probably is not great for our bank account, but it was alot of fun! I should have taken more pictures, but the only one's I got are from when we went to the ballet, so enjoy. . .

Thanksgiving/Birthday Week

This past week has been a busy one for Jared and I. Luckily neither of us had classes on Monday and Tuesday, so school was pretty laid back, but we spent tons of time with family, which I for one, am paying for today as I think about all that I need to get done during the next few weeks of the semester! It is crazy how fast the past four months have gone, I can't even believe it! Here's a quick recap of the week. . .

Sunday (11/21)

We went to church then headed up to Whit and Chris's for dinner and football. While there I was chatting with Whit, Liss and Mom about what to get Jared for his birthday which was on Wednesday. I had been trying to decide if I should get him a Wii because he really wanted one, but I was worried that we would both waste too much time on it (my reservations have proven to be true by the way!). They told me to go for it, so I spent the night trying to find a good deal on KSL, no luck.

Monday (11/22)

I was luckily able to find a guy up in SLC who was selling his Wii on KSL. He was selling it with a few games that we wanted plus some other extra accessories for only 250 bucks, which was a pretty dang good deal! I told him that I would pick it up from him the next morning. Monday after school we met up with my family it go see the Harry Potter movie which we both really liked.

Tuesday (11/23)

I used the excuse that I needed to go watch Drake while Whit and my mom went to the fabric store in the morning (I'd really rather die than go to the frickin fabric store!!!) to throw Jared off my tracks while I cruised up to SLC to pick up the Wii. I stopped by Whit's house on the way home and scrubbed off some dust and dirt that was on the Wii and the accessories and then my mom helped me wrap them up. I headed back up to campus to get some things done, but that was cut short by campus being closed at 3 pm because the "blizzard" of the century was bearing down on northern Utah. Jared and I decided to head up to Whit's to hunker down for the night because of the storm. Baha, this is funny. . . It's been a really long time since anybody in my family other than Nick and I have lived in a city that has real winters. So when we get over to Whit's, her and my mom, Wess and Liss were getting the propane tank filled, big jugs of water filled (just in case we would need it to flush the toilets if the water got shut down!) and flashlights rounded up. They were prepared to get snowed in, Jared and I just laughed, they were cute! Anyway, I was so excited about Jared's birthday present that I let him open it that night even though his birthday wasn't till the next day. He was pretty stoked and produced a manly "yeeaahh" when he saw the Wii. I had wrapped it in an Ugg box just to throw him off a bit. He later said that when he first saw the box he though, "I didn't know they made Ugg's for dudes..." haha. I think I deserve a "cool wife award" for getting Jared a sweet birthday present this year! We had a good ol' time playin Mario Cart that night. Drake loved watching us play and constantly yelled, "GO B, GO B!" or "Vroom vroom B!" (He calls Jared and I "B" because our nicknames are affectionately Bird and Bear in my family, don't ask...)

Wednesday (11/24)

When we got up I made Jared some breakfast for his birthday, I even made bacon, which is a pretty big deal for me because I really hate the smell of bacon! We then spent most of the day playing the Wii of course! We headed up to Heidi and Jeff's (Jared's sister and bro-in-law) to hang out for the rest of the week. Jared's parents and brother Brandt came down from Washington and we had pizza and cake and just hung out with the kids which was really fun

Very excited to blow out his candles!

Big breath . . .

And blow!

(Check out that cool shirt, a present from Jared's awesome parents!)

Thursday (11/25)

A pretty awesome Thanksgiving for us! We slept in, helped when needed with food prep and had a delicious feast with great company!

Friday (11/26)

Us girls were up at the crack of dawn (not really, but we tried) so that we could hit some good sales at Macy's and Target. Kell and I scored on some great black coats at Macy's and we all found some good deals at Target after that. We went home around noon for lunch and the rest of the gang, minus Jeff and the kids, headed back out for more shopping. By the time we got back to the house around 6 pm we were all beat! Jared and I headed back home that night.

Saturday (11/27)

I woke up to see our Chirstmas tree assembled in our family room, 10 pts for Jared! I had come down with a cold/flu Friday night when we got home, so I was pretty much out of comission the whole day, but it couldn't stop me from enjoying the BYU vs. Utah game. We had quite the crew come over for the game, basically my whole family cause Whit and Chris didn't get the channel on their Dish. After many complaints about the lack of HD (come on people, we're poor college students who live in a basement aparment) we settled in for a good game, at least until the very last play of the game! Oh well, there's always next year for Heaps & Co.

Sunday (11/28)

I still wasn't feeling very good that morning so I stayed home from church and slept. Jared took good care of me the whole day and even made some delicious creamy chicken soup with red potatoes and everything! He cooked, cleaned, made me rest and drink lots of water. There's nobody else I'd rather have to take care of me, he's a keeper. Our families were able to make it back home to Washington and St. George safely even in crappy weather which capped off the end to a very fun week.

The Game

Wess and Meliss were so nice to invite us to the BYU vs. New Mexico game last night. . . best part about it was the amazing seats we had. And when I say amazing, I really mean A-MAZING! Melissa's grandparents buy box tickets every season and don't use them very often, so Wess and Meliss invited us to go with them and use their grandparents tickets yesterday, seriously awesome!

Our view from inside the box!

Jared smiling like a crazy person!

He's so pleased with himself of course

A nice cute picture

Wess and Meliss, always cute!

The crew

Thanks again guys, it was pretty sweet!

Some Goodness

I found this band, Boyce Avenue, last year on itunes and they are way good! They've gotten more popular the past few months and for good reason. They have some original stuff, but they mostly do covers which are all amazing! Here's a few of my favoriate








You should seriously go check them out on youtube or itunes, they are just dang good!

Opinions Please

This is kind of a different post, but I've been thinking the past few days about being married. It seems like all you ever hear about lately is one broken marriage after another. It makes me wonder what those people were thinking, what could have been so bad, why can't they just work stuff out? But more than anything though it makes me admit to the fact that I probably take my marriage and my husband for granted more than I should. Obviously none of us have perfect marriages, and none of us are perfect people. . . but what can we do to show our spouses that we are grateful for them? Here's some things I've been thinking about, what do you think, what else can we do?

- Say thank you more often when he does the dishes, vacuums and cleans our entire bathrom from top to bottom

- Quit bugging him about how he should do his hair (ha)

- Stop to think before I say things that I'm joking about, because sometimes it can be offensive

- Be more patient with him and not try to coerce him into doing his school projects when all he really wants to do is ride his bike or relax for a while

- Continue to get ready, dress cute and look pretty for him (I haven't "let myself go" or anything, but for some reason I just don't care as much now that I'm married, which is bad!)

- Be slow to get upset but get over things fast

- Continue to tell him that I love him often

Those are just a few things that I could think of off the top of my head, I'm interested to know what others think, or what works for you. And even if you aren't married, still feel free to give suggestions!

Fun Memories

I was getting bored at school today so I started looking through a bunch of old pictures, they bring back some fun memories!

Hiking Zion in Nov 2008

Sledding in Washington, Dec 2009

The night we took our bridal pics
Mar. 2009

Wedding, May 2009

Awkward dancing, May 2009 :)

Brianhead, June 2009

Cruise, August 2009

Friend's wedding, August 2009

Graduation, April 2010

I hate to admit this, but we are a pretty cute couple I think!

They did it!

A big congrats to Wess and Melissa!! They got married yesterday, Oct. 9th down in St. George. Jared and I had a fun time at the wedding and we actually managed to snap a few pictures. . .

Brothers

Sisters

All the siblings

At the luncheon

Our personal favorite picture

of the whole weekend! He was a bit

out of it!

Congrats again to Wess and Meliss, we couldn't be happier about the newest addition to the Musso clan!

Milestone!

My friend Mikell (who happens to be my sister-in-law, but she was my friend first, so I choose to refer to her as my friend!) wrote this funny post about how she just bought her first real purse, which took her like 6 or 7 years to do! (Don't worry friends, I still don't own a real purse, or even a fake purse for that matter!) Anyway, in honor of that great accomplishment, I decided I needed to have one of my own. . . So after 23 years of being a girl, I have finally bought myself. . . .wait for it. . . a curling iron!!! Yep, I am the proud owner of a 1.5 inch diameter legit curling iron. I even kind of know how to curl it by myself too, thanks to my sister's help. I will have to post a picture of my curled hair at some point in the future. . .

I realize I have been a very bad blogger, so here's a run down of things that have happened in the past couple of months

-My little brother got engaged! We all love Melissa and we are excited for the two of them to get married on Oct. 9th!
-We have been making quite a few trips back and forth from STG for holidays and wedding preparations. It has been fun to spend time with my family down there, although the drive is getting a bit old!
-Graduate school is great so far. It's seriously like 50 times easier than my undergrad program. I am only required to take 7 credits a semester, so all that other time I used to spend in class, I now get to spend doing HW, yes!
-Jared's school has been pretty laid back so far, but that won't be lasting long and I'm not looking forward to all of the long nights he will have to put in this semester.
-We found out we will be having a baby this coming summer
-We were able to go mountain biking this past weekend which was so much fun! Biking in STG is way better than the mountainous trails of Provo!
-Haha kidding about the baby. . . just wanted to get a scare out of my mom

Well that's about it, nothing too crazy or exciting. I am going to force myself to take a camera with me down to STG during these next few weekends to document the wedding events, which will make these posts a little bit more interesting!

50 something

My mom had her 50 something birthday a few weeks ago, and my sister started a list of 50 tid bits about our mom on her blog (click here to get the list), so I decided to finish the list to make it an even 100 tid bits about this wonderful lady we call mom.

51- She used to give me back scratches every night when we were little

52- She made almost all of my prom dresses when I was in high school

53- She always came to all of my basketball/softball games even though she was more nervous for me when I played

54- She is the first person I call when I have a question about cooking

55- She is fiercely defensive of her son-in-laws and future daughter in law, me and my siblings always get in trouble if we even joke around about our spouses in her presence

56- She loves sunrises

57- She loves petrified wood (haha)

56- She always likes to go on a good hike

57- She is a very fast reader

58- She broke her leg skiing several years ago

59- She was always there to listen and comfort me through my awkward high school years

60- She loves having our friends over

61- She drove us across the country to visit our family in Ohio a couple of years after we moved out here to Utah

62- She loves horses

63- She loves those little "precious moment" statues, dad would always buy her a new one if she was having a hard day

64- She played volleyball in college before she moved out to BYU

65- She was completely sold on Jared from the very first time she met him

66- She has the most funny laugh, especially when she's watching movies

67- She supports us in everything that we do

68- She is super savvy with her texting skills

69- She has a very similar relationship with her sister as I do with my own sister

70- She is always so excited to see us, even if its only been a week since being home

71- She can understand a little German

72- She passed both of her Praxis tests, so no more tests for her!

73- She is the voice of reason in our family

74- She always has the answers to my problems it seems

75- Her favorite color is yellow

76- I was the only kid to inherit her green eyes

77- She likes to make good German food

78- She also likes to watch the Animal Planet

79- Her and my dad were "24" junkies for the longest time

80- She can always find the positive in crazy, annoying situations

81- She puts up with my dad :)

82- And loves him despite his wierdness!

83- Even though she wanted me to go on a mission, she was more happy about me getting married

84- She missed my little brother more than anybody while he was in Korea (well not counting Melissa anyway)

85- She is good friends with my mother-in-law, who happens to be just like her

86- She loves her hot chocolate in the winter time

87- She has lots of freckles

88- She is the oldest of three kids

89- She always has a tidy house

90- She gets after us if we are ever being rude or obnoxious

91- She is actually not a huge fan of mother's day

92- She was way sad to leave Whit, Chris and Drake up here after helping them get moved into their new home

93- She can't wait for us to have kids

94- She was very proud of herself when she started wearing mascara

95- She loves The Sound of Music, she thinks Captain Von Trap is hot

96- She likes going to church with Jared and I when she visits

97- She is very good at making people feel comfortable around her

98- She loves to garden

99- She is proud of all her children

100- We are very blessed to have a mom as great as her!

Summer Adventures

We will let the pictures do the talking because I'm not really in the mood to explain our trips at the moment. . . enjoy

Trip down to Cedar Breaks

View from the top of Brianhead Peak

We went with our friends Adam and Aubrey

Aubrey and I being models :)

Jared was enthralled with the rocks for some reason. . .

We climbed through a cave by the light of our cameras!

Stewart Falls

The rest of these are pics from our Gibbons family

vacation up to the Oregon Coast

Blake and Sheena's puppy Lucy

Andrew needed a bath after playing in the sand!

Our sweet tent!