Y'all ready for this?!...

Another month has flown by and I have, once again, not blogged any of the fun times that we have had! But don't worry... we've taken lots of pictures! So, here we go...

Isn't she such a cutie? I just wanted to throw that in there... :)
Here's the Blackout Game fun... Utah vs. TCU! If any of you know anything about that game, you know that was not a fun day for Utah fans! But the pre-game show was pretty cool...
This was us at the beginning of the game.....
And... after the first quarter! Sad day!
Annie and her brother having fun at the game... don't they look so much alike?!
Wow... And this wasn't even the end of the game! This is when we left though.
We were still happy, not really sure why though!
This was the extent of our Thanksgiving decorations... They were our "Thankful leaves." They all said "I am thankful for..." It was a fun way to decorate and show our gratitude during the Thanksgiving season!
We had a game night with Brooke and Matt Smith, and Sara Larsen and a random guy! It was a lot of fun! We played Jenga and I just felt the need to show this picture because we all look so fantastic! If you can get past that though, look how well we were doing! 26 levels! :) Apparently REALLY good players can get to 35 levels... we couldn't figure out how that would be possible because 26 levels was pretty crazy! I was the one who finally knocked it over... it was kind of a sad moment!
On a new note... We went to California for Thanksgiving and it was so much fun! We loved having a chance to just relax and not worry about things at home like school and work! Here's our Thanksgiving dinner... YUM! It was an adventure! But we made it look good anyway!

The rest of the pictures are kind of out of order but we got to walk down to the beach from the house that we were staying at... So much fun! Here is a picture of the cousins on my dad's side... Megan, me, Nicole, and Hannah (just a little smaller group than the cousins on either side in Andrew's family! :)
We went to Laguna beach...
... and we parked a few spots away from this car! Andrew kind of freaked out a little! You can see in the background that Hannah thinks Andrew is crazy! Haha! We ran into the owner of the car on our way out... he was a meanie! But we loved his car anyway. **Note: If you ever go to Laguna Beach and park in a parking lot, make sure that you park WITHIN the lines of the parking stall! We got a parking ticket (warning) for being "parked over the lines" (I should have taken a picture but we were barely on the line AND there weren't any other parking spots on that side of us because there was a wall there... so just so you know... don't park on any lines out there!)
We also got to go to the Newport Beach Temple while we were there! It was amazing! And SO pretty!! :)

This was the view from our "suite" at the house we stayed at!
Different views of the house.
This was the back yard and the house... the windows on the top floor on the left were the windows to our room.
Those stairs are the entrance to our room... you had to go outside to get up there!
And this is the view from the front.
The view from the back yard!
The group... My dad's whole side of the family (except my grandma).



We had a blast hanging out with my family and spending time in California! Thanks Aunt Nancy for all the pictures! And thanks so much to Grace for letting us stay at our house with her! WE loved it!

Birds... Beware!

Andrew has a thing for hitting birds. Ever since we started spending time in Salt Lake (freshman year in college), he has hit an unusual amount of birds. For some reason, when Andrew is driving the birds flock to the car... apparently all of the birds with a death wish have heard about Andrew's bird hitting skills.

It all started when we were on our way home from school one day and there was a group of birds in the road in front of us. When we started getting closer to the group of birds most of them flew away. Except the one with the death wish. He stayed in the road waiting for us. So, naturally, Andrew slowed down in hopes that the bird would get the hint and fly away. It didn't. Plan B: make sure not to hit the bird with the tires! So he lined up the car so that the bird would be able to stay safe (sounds like a good plan, right? Wrong!) As soon as the car went over him, he freaked out and tried to fly away (Apparently he didn't understand the plan). We didn't know the poor guy had tried to fly away and in the hopes that he was still standing safely in the road, we looked behind the car and POOF!, an explosion of feathers. Poor bird!

Since then we have had several encounters with birds while Andrew has been driving. A few months ago a bird literally flew into the side of the car while we were driving through the Avenues. Birds have taken nose dives aimed at the windshield until suddenly realizing what was going on and flying away at the last second.

Today, however, is the best bird story in my opinion. Andrew was driving on the way to work and there were a ton of birds on the road. There were not any birds in the lane in front of us so Andrew slowed down a little but still kept going. Suddenly one of the pigeons started WALKING across the street in front of us. Why? We don't really know! He must have been looking to get hit. Andrew stopped the car and let the pigeon cross the street while the car behind us, I'm sure, thought that we were just crazy. At least the pigeon had some sense to walk across the street at a crosswalk.

Note to birds: Stop flying/walking into our car! Andrew doesn't want to hurt you!

H.A.L.L.O.W.E.E.N....

We've had a lot going on this month. It seems like time is going by so fast. We've been working and Andrew's been going to school and we've been doing what we can to not be overwhelmed with everything we have going on in life right now. I feel like I decorated for Halloween yesterday even though it has been over a month since I put our decorations up. Somehow Halloween has already come and gone and I never posted pictures of our wonderful decorations like I promised people I would. So here ya go...







So much fun! Back in September I got to go shopping for decorations since we, being newlyweds, don't have anything to decorate for any holiday. It was fun and I was excited with all of the stuff that I got and was glad that Andrew liked all the decorations that I got. I even went a little crazy and bought some Christmas decorations a little early! And now that Halloween is over, I can start listening to Christmas music and looking forward to that! Andrew drew a sign in our kitchen that says "It's almost Halloween!" that has been up for months because I was so excited about it! And I don't doubt that there will be a sign that says it's almost Christmas up there sometime soon.
Anyway... I've been nannying for the past few months. It's been a fun and crazy adventure. The kids are hilarious and I love getting to watch them as they use their imaginations and make me laugh. This is what I saw the other day and was told that he was putting his helmet on so that we could play football. Obviously he couldn't see when I would throw the ball at him so he would tell me that I needed to throw it at his head so that he would know when it was coming! I don't know why I didn't think of that on my own....
And, of course, you can't take a picture of one kid without taking a picture of the other. She wanted to look at the camera though. She was hilarious with the "helmet" on. She kept walking into things and she could not figure out why. Like I said... I love kids!
A few weeks ago Andrew and I got to go watch one of our nieces for a little while. Yet another hilarious kid! We had so much fun playing with her! She was walking around with my phone talking on it pretty much the whole time we were there. Then she decided to put on my shoes and walk around. She got the shoes on and then fell as soon as she tried to walk around. Apparently my feet are a little bigger than hers!
She also had a lot of fun playing with my purse and emptying my wallet. Look out mom and dad... She already knows how to empty someone else's wallet of all their money and credit cards! She was so cute though! Look how she posed for this picture. It was like she was saying, "I'm so cute, can't I just keep it?"
On the way home the other day we saw this man running around downtown Salt Lake. He runs around a lot and always carries that flag with him. It's pretty cool!
Utah vs. Colorado State game! So much fun and SO wet! We were soaked and freezing. We decided that the poncho purchase was worth standing in line for EVER with the other fans who were not prepared for the weather. Luckily, now we have them in our car and will be prepared for the next time we need them. Hopefully we don't have anymore wet games like that though! Our peripheral vision was greatly compromised by the good looking ponchos that we had on!
After the game we went to the Off Broadway Theater with Annie and saw the play "Ylight" (a parody on Twilight that makes fun of BYU). It was really funny! We laughed a lot watching them make fun of Twilight and BYU, can't get much better than that! Hopefully we will get to go see some other shows at the theater, it sounds like they had some pretty good stuff coming up.
This guy was hilarious! He made the show and it was so funny to watch him throw random improved lines in during the show and throw the other actors off. He was probably my favorite part! And he's the owner of the theater so he's in all the shows!

Annie got a new headband that one of the girls in her ward makes and Andrew was modeling it for us...
Andrew and I decided to throw a surprise birthday party for my dad's 65th birthday! He was way surprised considering we never do anything for his birthday! We even had one of his friends from Reno come up and make the surprise that much better! We had lots of family and lots of food there! It was a lot of fun and we had a blast surprising my dad at his house! Thanks for everyone that helped us out!

Here's the "I'm so surprised" face... Luckily we didn't cause a heart attack with our surprise! :)

Apparently this was his first time EVER cutting a cake! (65 and he had never cut a cake! Wow!)

Then, yesterday we were able to spend the day with my dad and Nicole. We decided that we wanted to dress up to go see our nieces and nephews in their costumes, so we went shopping and threw some stuff together! It was lots of fun! Nicole was an... Asian of some sort. I was a bee...
... and Andrew was... Santa! The kids at the Trunk-or-Treat that we visited to see some of the nieces and nephews stared at him a lot! One little kid even came up and said "Santa?" Then just stood there and stared at him for a while... it was awesome!
Rylee and Lana looked super cute in their costumes!
Kate even posed for me to take a picture! She was super cute too!
And here's Hayden in his Lightning McQueen outfit. He even posed for me! (That doesn't usually happen..)
Then we went to see the other kids and they were all super cute! I don't know how I forgot to take pictures of all of them! They looked great! I'm sure Tai will have some pictures of them up on her blog though! Apparently bugs are an "in" costume this year. Tai was a ladybug and I was a bee... and no, we didn't plan that! We didn't even know until we showed up to see them!
Nicole had already changed but we made her take some pictures with us anyway! All of our costumes went so well together! Oh well though! We had a ton of fun! Thanks for everyone who made it a great Halloween.

And because we had an extra pumpkin sitting in our car from my dad's party, Andrew decided he wanted to smash it! But first he rolled it down a hill (and almost hit a car coming the other way... oops!) Then, when it didn't smash rolling down the hill, he went and smashed it because leaving it in the middle of the road whole would have been rude! :) I wish I had gotten more pictures, but I'm not 100% sure it's even legal so I guess it's ok that this is the only picture I have... it proves nothing! haha! :)
And that is what we've been up to! Hopefully I'll post again before Thanksgiving so I don't have to do such a long post! Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!! :) And remember: It's ALMOST Christmas! :)