Last tag, hopefully

Truly, I do love to see these on other people's blogs, so I hope you enjoy them. This one's for you Aims.

5 things I was doing 10 years ago:
1. Totally boy crazy
2. My woredrobe consisted of sweatshirts, jean and my nike gym shoes everyday.
3. Swimming daily
4. Teasing my siblings daily
5. Running into our shed when my dad let me pull the car forward to shoot basketball hoops.

5 things on my to-do list today:
1. Chrstmas Shopping
2. Grocery Shopping
3. Laundry
4. Neighbor gifts?
5. Plan the girls' Christmas party.

5 foods I enjoy:
1. Costa Vida tortillas
2. tres Leche cake from Cafe Rio
3. Lemon zest with almost everything I make
4. Balsalmic Vineger
5. EVOO (realize, the last three aren't really a food persay, but they can do wonders for so many things.)

5 bad habits:
1. I hate washing my face at night
2. I always forget to do things
3. I don't think before I speak
4. I'm still learning how to stay on a budget
5. I like to do what I want when I want.

5 of my favorite toys: (this is a weird one)
1. double stick tape (this can do wonders with so many things!)
2. black paint (If I don't like a decoration, I can be rest assured, that it will look great black)
3. fabric (I love cute fabric, now, if I only really knew what to do with it)
4. sewing machine(I don't have one, but I want one that embrodiers-got that santa?)
5. snowboard(don't get to use this much more, I actually don't have one anymore, but next year, I'm hitting it hard!)

Christmas for me is...

There are all these "tags" going around, I'll get to them all someday. So here is my tag for Getting to know you "Christmas Edition". Enjoy!
1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? I think I've only had Egg Nog once, and never again! I'm totally a hot chocolate chica!
2. Does Santa wrap the presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa wrapped them until I was like 6, then he just left them under the tree.
3. Red or white lights? White
4. Do you hang mistletoe? No, but I should, it truly is a cute plant.
5. When do you put your decorations up? I start the week of Thanksgiving and do a little here and there all week.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Mmm! Every Christmas Eve, my grandparents come over and my dad makes pineapple ham...So yummy!
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? When we were little, we all used to sleep in the same room. One year my little brother, Tyson, and sister Mackenzie, sleep in Tyson's room, while my other sister, Tiffany, slept in Mackenzie's room down the hall, (I don't know why tiff wasn't with us, I think she was sick). So Tyson, Mackenzie and I got up early to see the presents before my parents said we could. As to not leave tiff out, Mackenzie ran to get Tiffany, who just happened to sleep with the door shut. But Mackenzie, thinking the door would be open, because that's how she sleeps, ran right into the door. All we hear is a hard thud and then Mackenzie screaming "oweey". Tyson and I started laughing and after that, we were all up.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I think I was 8 or 9.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We used to open a gift from our grandparents because they were with us on Christmas Eve, but now we really don't.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? We have white lights, white ribbon, a red and silver "glisten" sign, along with red, silver, green and clue ornaments and little tin signs that say "believe"
11. Snow: Love it or hate it? Seriously, I LOVE it! And what is up with Perry getting like 3 inches, while Brigham gets nothing!
12. Can you ice skate?Yes, I can skate, I can even go backwards.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? My favorite gift...it would probably be the year I got a CD player and the Celine Dion CD, it's still one of my favorites.
14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Spending time with family and friends that you don't get to see all the time.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Well, I do know I hate divinity. Holy Sugar! I think I would say I LOVE wassail! If I could I'd always have a crockpot with it ready and waiting. I really love homemade carmels.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? I really love what we do on Christmas Eve, we get together, have a nice meal, usually watch a good Christmas movie, and then read the Christmas story and get ready for Santa to come!
17. What is on top of your tree? A white glitter star.
18. Which do you like best giving or receiving?I love to GIVE! I seriously just think of all the things I can get other people, I wish I had enough money to give it all!
19. Christmas Song? O Holy Night by Celine Dion, and Deck the Halls by Shedaisy.
20. Do you like candy canes? Yes! I LOVE Candy Cane shakes from the Yogurt Factory! Mmm!
I tag: Amiee, Jalene, Candice, and Jenny.

Thanksgiving, and the Christams Tree Hunt

Wow, this year I have so much to be thankful for! Last week I gave a lesson in YW about gr attitude and did you know that ingratitude is one of the most serious sins? Joseph Smith said it is, and so Thomas S. Monson has said that if that is the case, then "gratitude must be among the noblest virtues." Neat huh! I guess we better be grateful! Which I am.

1. I'm grateful for my savior Jesus Christ

2. I'm grateful for the gospel

3. I'm grateful for my education

4. I'm grateful for my Rob

5. I'm grateful for my family

6. I'm grateful for 2 cars that run

7. I'm grateful for missionaries, esp. my brother

8. I'm grateful for my grandparents

9. I'm grateful for my health

10. I'm grateful for my talents
11. I'm grateful for my friends
12. I'm grateful for my job
So with all this to be grateful for, why not say I'm grateful for food! This Thanksgiving was great! We went to Rob's house and it's just not Thanksgiving for me without my mom's pineapple yams, so I volunteered myself to make those. I can't take all the credit though. Rob made most of them. He's such a great helper in the kitchen!

And what can Thanksgiving be w/o football? This was actually before Thanksgiving. This is the only football game Rob's been able to get to this year. USU vs. Boise St. USU got thumped, but it was fun to go w/ family and friends.

Christmas Tree Hunt:

So the Riley's have a tradition of going on a Christmas tree hunt in Idaho every year to find, obviously, their Christmas Trees. Here are the boys getting ready.

Rob brought us back this little guy. He decided he'd make a good Christmas tree (more pictures of it in all it's glory on another post)

Later that night, Rob and I went to find some light for our house. When we got home, it was about 11:30, but we decided to put them up anyways. We got done about 12:00am, but it was worth it! We feel so festive!

Tagged,

Ok, so my friend Carin tagged me to list 5 thingabout me that you probably didn't know so here I go...

1. I wish I had a soundtrack to my life! I seriously wish I had music playing in the backgroud of my entire life! I just think that it would help to set the mood that I try to create sometimes! Like sometimes I play music when Rob gets home from work to try and create a playful mood, or a romantic mood, or currently, a Christmas mood, he's ok with the Christmas mood, but usually he just turns the game on, thus, ruining the mood. Truly, it's crazy how totally opposite our taste in music is. Nonetheless, I wish my life had a soundtrack that I picked out. It would have a lot of songs from Grey's Anatomy b/c "Seriously," they have some good ones!

1.5 When I wwatch Grey's, it makes me want to be a surgeon. I think it would be awesome! Except when I think about it, I am in reality and then I think about it in a real sense and think of all the super late nights away from my family and how stressful it would be. Unfortunately the closes thing I've got to it is rotations at the VA hospital in the dental wing and that's not as intense, but we had a breakroom and everything, so for a second, it almost seemed like maybe it was like I was, but then I inhaled, and can I just say, the smell of the VA brings you back to reality really quick and you don't want to be there more than you have to.

2. I just want to look in everyone's mouth! You see, I clean for a living. People's mouth's that is. Kinda sick when you think about it that way, but I'm obsessed! Seriously, when I see a little kid getting his first teeth I think it's the cutest thing in the world! But truly, you can tell so much about a person from their mouth! Really! And truth be told, when you lie to your hygienist when she asks you how often you brush and floss, we know! And I love when cool things happen like getting a tooth pulled. Like one day I was cleaning this ladies tooth and it was wiggly, so I messured the bone level and I got a 12+mm pocket and so I took an x-ray and there was nothing hold it in, so I told the doc and he didn't believe me, until he came and saw the x-ray! Then he pulled it and the only thing holding it in was a chunk of tissue at the end of the root! AWESOME!

3. I can sing, pretty well. Okay, I have done a pretty good job at hiding this one. When I jam out I don't really pay any attention to technique, I just kind of jam, but when I'm really working on a song and if I have to perform in front of people I take it a little more seriously. I know it is a talent I have been given and I wish I would use it more, but I don't want to invite myself to sing. If I'm asked, I'll do it, no questions asked, and I usually am excited at the opportunity. But I don't just tell people I'm a great singer. I think I just struggle with the singer/choir member stereotype. I just don't really mesh with their singing in the hall, 'let's get together and practice in the commons area' type attitude that draws attention to myself. I've actually had the chance to sing at general conference which was a once in a lifetime opportunity that I will never forget. It was the April 2005 saturday afternoon session. And with that I move on to...

4. I want to be in MoTab! Seriously. I want to be in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir one day. Every conference I just watch the choir and hope that I'll be there one day. Although I don't really like to listen to choir music, I would like to be in the choir because I think it would be a totally neat experience! Plus I love to sing and I think if you're in the choir, you get to do that all the time. And if I'm lucky they'll go on a worldwide tour again.

5. I want to be a photographer. Okay, I don't know anything about it, but I want to be able to take really good pictures and have actaully thought about going back to school to at least take classes in photography, but maybe get another major. Probably won't, but I'd really like to learn how to take fantastic pictures. I want to be able to catch my kids and my life in such a beautiful way that I can look back and remember the moment in a remarkable way....and then I can put a soundtrack to it, thus allowing me to complete #1.

P.S. New Tunes

So I've put a music player on my blog. Love it, but it was a tricky situation...anyhow, I figured it out. Hope I never have to do it again. But I hope you enjoy the tunes.

Halloween Take 2

So our friends had a Halloween party the weekend before halloween and so we had to dress up as couples, and before my inspiration to be Mrs. Incredilbe, I had decided that we were going as old people. So here we are!

Don't we make the cutest old couple...Rob's 'stach has white streaks in it, but you can't really see it. Our glasses were .50 at the DI, but we only wore them for the picture, b/c they were real bifocals and gave us major headaches.This is an action photo of "the girls" minus Carin and Kami. We missed them SO SO mcuh! I love these girls so much! They are like sisters to me! We've been best friends since high school. So many people are shocked that we were and still are such great friends b/c we are all so different. We've agreed that is the reason why we are still so close. We never changed in high school to be friends with each other. We just loved each other for who we were, so now that we're done with school, we're still best friends b/c we never had to change in the first place. We get together whenever we can, but Kami and Carin are missed greatly. It's just not the same without them!So for a recollection, Jess and Jon where vampires, April was a football player with Jason as a referee. Rob and I were old people, and Danielle was a cowgirl, Bryan was a scarecrow and Jacob was a cow!

Such a fun party. It should be a tradition. Hopefully we'll all be together for the Christmas party.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Hope that everyone had an "Increadible" one! I just wanted to post my Halloween costume. I made it all by myself! I was so proud. The office that I'm temping at on Wed was dressing up as super heros. I wasn't to excited, but last night I had inspiration and went to Wal-Mart. Truth be told, I think mine was better than all the rest. And they got theirs from some fancy smancy website for like 50 bucks! All the other girls were all the other super heros, ie. batgirl, superwoman, catwoman, and wonder woman. They told me there was one for mrs. increadible that was like $40, but it seriously looked stupid and lame and who wants to pay 40 dollars for an adult onesie that I'll never wear again? So I got my creative jucies flowing and...

Red pants from the little girls section: $6.22

Red top: $7

Black, Orange, and Yellow fabric: $1

Home made Mrs. Increadible outfit that I don't feel like a dork in: Priceless!

Rob and I also went to a couples Halloween party, which I'll post pictures of later. We were old people. It was so FANTASTIC! We looked awesome!

Attention all hygienists

Ok, so I'm stressing. Rob and I always thought that we would use this time to save up a lot of money where we don't have kids and I can work full time, however, I'm stressing because this is not happening. I seriously love the dentist I'm with now, he's awesome, I believe in his work and yadda yadda yadda. However, he's not the most proactive when it comes to getting pts. See he sold his practice in Ogden to build a practice with his sister, who is already established. I've been there 3 months and he has yet to advertise. He keeps telling me it will be worth it if I'm in it for the long haul, which I am, for sure, but only if we get some advertising going. Seriously! I need the money (I know, how sad, but that's what I went to get a career for). I'm only getting about 1/2 the hours I would like to be getting. I'm supposed to be double booked right now, and I have an assistant, but I seriously feel like asking him to single book me until we have more pts. And I've also been thinking that I could just do all the stuff for advertising as long as he pays for it and pays me for the time. Do you think this is ok? Any suggestions? Please!

Pumpkin Harvest

Rob's dad has been growing pumpkins this year. He grew really big ones just to say he did. So Sunday was the Riley Pumpkin Harvest. It was so much fun! We had 45 pumkins in all! The kids sure did have a fun time with it!

This is most of us in the pumpkin patch.

Keaton, Gracie and Tytan were checking out all the pumkins.

Rob and I ended up taking just two for now. The big ones were hard to move, but we did it.

Will and Keaton on the dolly.

Matt and Rob taking Mark for a ride on the stretcher. That's how we moved most of them.

What a happy family we make! I told Jim he'll have to do it again next year, b/c I had a blast!

Peach Days

I get so excited for Peach Days every year. It's seriously so fun! And luckily we're still in a central location for all the festivities so we could go home whenever we needed to. I mad Rob get up really early so that we could get seats for the parade. This year we got some pretty good ones, right in front of the county building! Here's some pictures of the parade.

This is Young Plumbing...they are in it every year...this year they're sporting the color purple...it changes every few years, I always think of it as neon pink.
Ok, so we have no idea who these people were, but they were dressed like Star Wars. My nephew Keaton LOVES Star Wars, so we got these for him, and for Tyson who's on the mish.

Tiff and I with this very lucky star wars dude, I think he's supposed to be aniken or something.

And I don't know who this star wars dude is either. But he's one of the army dudes, obviously. :)

And this is Rob and I...Rob is obviously thrilled to be there. Truthfully, though, he was. He was a good sport all day. He really enjoys parades and it was great despite the fact that it's getting so long (2.5 hours!) and these darn kids kept standing in front of us and their parents didn't do anything about it! Seriously!? Does that not make you so mad! I get up at 6 in the morning to get seats and some people just squeeze in wherever they can and their parents don't care if they're children are being rude and obnoxious! Pet peeve!

Okay, aside for my vent, Peach days was fun. I had peach cobbler and walked around the booths. Then met up with my high school girls and their hubbies for dinner at Maddox. We missed Carin and Jessica, but had a good time none the less.

New house

Well, we got moved into our new place. I'm still trying to put stuff away (mostly decorations) but other than that we're settled in. I'm totally LOVING having my own washer and dryer! As you can see below.
We also love having a garage...most of the shelves are already filled!

And this is a picture of our new bedroom, like 10 times more spacious than our old one. We are really liking all the extra space and are glad to have AC too.

Moving...

Well, we've decided that we've out grown our little one bedroom basement apartment. After a search we were able to find another one in our ward that we liked. We're pretty excited. It's actually a duplex that is side to side. So we don't have to worry about upstaris or downstairs neighbors. We have a garage and a nice sized private yard that we're excited about too. We have nice big windows and a nice big laundry room. We seriously feel like we're moving up in the world :) We're sad to leave our cozy little place, but we're excited to have more room!

So this is what I've been doing the last couple of days. My DDS has been on vacation, so I've had a few days off to do some fun stuff and start packing.

Also, my cousins from cali came to visit for a week. We picked them up on Monday and took them for a stop at the Pie. Pretty good pizza, sanitariness is questionable!

one month later...more pictures

Well, I know I haven't posted for like 1 month, so here are some pictures from our playing over the last two months. We've been having fun so far, and aren't really excited to start school again, at least for Rob, but it's the last year, so we are excited about that!

Tytan, Gracie and Rob up at Lava.

Rob on his hike w/ his dad and brothers.

Rob and Jaxson on the hunt at the family reunion.

My Mia Maids and Laurels after our over-night backpacking trip. I was so super proud of them!

Some pictures for you

I know I've promised pictures, so here are a few. The first one is of Rob and I up at Lava. We always have so much fun there.

I just had to share this one b/c I think my husband looks so hot w/ his ball cap backwards.

And this one is a picture of me riding the motor scooter. Vroom Vroom!

New template

So as you can tell, I've been working on my blog a little bit. I need to post pictures. They'll be coming soon. I'm kind of liking it. It looks new and fresh. I must give props to jalene for inspiring me. I'm still busy at work. I got my first paycheck from there for two weeks and I must say I'm rather proud of myself, and I think I can get used to this.
Rob and I are staying busy with work. He has next week off which I'm really excited for. Monday we're going to Lagoon. At least those are the plans. I haven't been for a few years, so I'm kinda excited.
We are also looking for a bigger apartment. I just feel like we're growing out of our little one. We're not ready to buy a house until Rob gets done wiht school and we know where we'll be. But it's oh so tempting! I want to plant cute flowers and paint walls. But as for now I'll be patient.

Working Woman

I am now employed! I'm super excited about it too. I'm working in a new office here in Perry! And I'm so loving that I don't have to drive more than 5 minutes to work! I'm lucky enough to work with a fabulous staff and they seriously are so fun! I'm still kind of feeling everything out, but it's been great! I just love that I'm actually working, can I tell you how much better it is compared to school...not that school was bad, but this is good! I'm working 4 days/wk, but right now not all of the days are full, but we're hoping that it picks up. The nice thing is that we alternate and every other week we have a 4 day weekend. So that will be exciting! I'm so a working woman!

New Orleans III

Okay, this post should finish it up. I just got a call from Rob telling me that he won't be home until 1, so I figure, what the heck, I might as well do something while I'm up. Now when I left off, michelle had just gotten her luggage. That was good huh, well Thursday night we had reservations for the famous resturant called "Nola" that is owned by the famous chef Emeril. Kami was not happy about missing it, but was 'home' in bed. Poor lady! So Michelle, Shelly and I went to Nolas and it was probably the nicest resturant I've ever been to...as far as being like a 5 star resturant. The sat us down and all and when michelle got up to go the the bathroom they escorted her there. I totally wish I had a picture of her face when this happened. She didn't go again while we were there b/c she didn't want it to happen again!

We all decided to order the same thing which was buttermilk battered fried chicken on top of mashed sweet potatos with a ham cream gravy and topped with sauteed sugar snap peas.Truthfully, it wasn't that great. THe chicken was good, but the sweet potatos were definately sweet making the combination rather interesting. After dinner we had dessert. We didn't really have a choice. They cleared our table of everything, then brought us out dessert menus and new glasses of water all in one quick motion and said "now what would you like for dessert?" We were all kind of taken back by this and decided we didn't really have an option, so we decided to share an apple pie w/ ice cream. It actually came with cinnimon ice cream, but we were a little nervous about it b/c of the sweet potatos, so we substituted it for vanilla. How plain, I know, but it was good!

On the way back we stopped at some of the souviner shops and caught this memorable moment! Notice that Shelly is sporting beads as well. However, we never were quite sure how she got them...

Saturday morning we slept in rather late and truthfully I don't know what we did before our lunch and learn that was at noon. So at noon, we had the lunch and learn which was actually very beneficial. It was tittled "Marketing yourself in a competative profession". There were about 4 other hygienists that gave us a lot of really good tips. Unfortunately we had to leave early in order to sell at the DH Marketplace where a lot of groups from different states sell things to earn money for their program. I actually bought a super cute watch from Kentucky DHA and I even got 5 dollars off b/c the battery wasn't working. It actually still isn't working. :) Everytime someone asked me what time it was I'd say 4:00. Ha ha ha, (I'm so funny) Anyhow, after the market place we were spent, so we went up and took a nap for a couple of hours.

When we woke up, it was about 7:20 and we decided we'd meet Shelly and go to dinner. We went to a cute little cafe at the end of Decatur. They had a nice jazz band.

Our waiter there was really nice. His name was Von and he was great. It was totally opposite from the night before at Nolas and it was quite tranquil. In fact, we weren't even asked if we wanted dessert. But when we asked another waiter if they had dessert, he said "um..yeah, we have bread pudding and um, vanilla ice cream." Wow, what a choice! We got a kick out of that and decided we'd find somewhere else to fight our sugar craving.

We ended up at Bubba Gumps shrimp house. It's all based off of the movie Forest Gump. It was a great atmosphere and the dessert was so fantastic!

We didn't do to much on Sunday. We stopped and got more of our yummy pralines that we'd been eating all week then had a PoBoy sandwich for lunch. I actually had red beans and rice b/c I heard it was so good down in the south. It was good, but not amazing. Afterwords we went to the river to ride the free ferry across and that was fun. This is Michelle and I before we went across.

On the way over we met a DH from New Orleans and she told us that they were having a really neat farmers market at the end of the French Quarter on Decatur st, so we hopped back on the ferry and went back.

I unfortunately don't have any pictures of the farmers market, but I think thats when it hit Michelle and I that we wanted to go home. The stuff was awesome, but there were a lot of people in a small place, it was hot, and seriously so many people smoke! We stayed for about an hour then went back to the hotel to get our stuff and catch a taxi to the airport. Speaking about smoking, one funny thing is that the flight attendant on one of our flights while giving her spill about how to keep your seatbelts on and such said "Please refrain from smoking for the rest of your life, but if you need to smoke, please wait to do so when you're off the plane." How awesome!

I have to put in a plug for my husband. When he picked us up, he had brought us granola bars, fruit, licorice and fruit snacks in case we were hungry. How cute is he! I was really excited to see him again. I missed him. And that's all.

So that's it, a total play by play of our New Orleans trip. Throughly fun and all in all a very sucessful trip! Now, I pack up again for Laurel Light Camp. Seriously, I'm so excited to just be home! I think I'm all vacationed out and it's only June.

New Orleans cont...

During the tour we also took a little pit stop. When we started we were given this little sticker that would get us a free soda when we stopped and so...here I am!

It was after the tour that Prof. Hanson and Prof. Costley started to get sick, so when they went to their rooms Michelle and I hit the town! We did some shopping and walked around A LOT! We really got to know the french quarter! We had a blast. This is a picture of me by Harrah's casino. We never went in, we were too busy doing other stuff, but they did have nice palm trees.

And of course what would New Orleans be with out trying their famous Beignets (pronounced ben-yeahs) We just got them to go and sat down on a bench to eat them. This is all that was left. You can also see my new kicks that I purchased earlier and I was really happy I did, because I wore them a lot!This is one of the many beautiful balconies that they have in the french quarter. This one was across from Cafe du monde. It's kind of dark, so I apologize.

Thursday, Shelly had a class in the morning and Kami was so sick, so Michelle and I went shopping again and then to the aquarium. This was taken in the entry way of the room "Coral Reef". Lots of fishes that are found in the Coral reef. Then we moved up to the Amazon Jungle room. There were a lot of plants and even some tucans, but unfortunately, our journey ended here. We got a call from Kami telling us she needed us back at the hotel ASAP. I must admit I was bummed. Mostly because they have an exhibit that you can pet baby sharks. And that's what I wanted to do most. Luckily, however, because we were only in there like 20 minutes, we were able to get a refund, so we were happy with that.After going to the hotel and helping Kami, we were sent on a mission to find velcro for our poster. However, there is something you must know about New Orleans...everything closes about 5, unless it's on Decatur, or Burbon street and unless it's a resuraunt. I'm sure you've all heard about Burbon street, thus the reason for it remaining open and Decatur is the main street that runs parallel to the river and lots of tourist shops are located there. So we had to find a hardware store that was open, mind you, we left the hotel at 5. So after asking a few people we found there was a hardware store on Burbon street, so we headed down there to find it. We did take a bit to take a picture for proof that we were there. We found the hardware store and were so glad that it didn't close until 6pm (yeah!) and were able to purchase some velcro.

This is a better picture of a balcony.

That night we drug Kami out of the hotel and went to dinner. Then Shelly wanted to see the night life on Burbon street, so we headed down there again and fortunately don't have any proof of us being there then, because anything we would've taken a picture of that would be appropriate to post anywhere would be the sidewalk. :) It was fun to see the band that we found in a bar called Fat Cats, but other than that, it was just trashy!

Friday morning we had to set up or poster board for our presentation and before presenting we went to Cafe du Monde for Shelly to try a beignet. On the way back Michelle made a command decision (finally :) ) to buy this piece of luggage she had been eyeing since we got there. Truthfully, it's easy to spot on the baggage claim! And it's really cute!

Stay tuned for more...for now...I'm tired.