Last Friday was a very busy, stressful, and fun day! After I arrived home from work Blake came over and we headed on over to Pep Boys the auto parts store. One of the tires on my Outback was leaking air and almost all of them were bald so I needed new ones. The problems with my car never end. Getting new tires was something that I was dreading, and was adding a ton of stress to my life. The day before this on Thursday, Blake, being the awesome boyfriend that he is called around to a bunch of auto stores to price compare and see what the best deal out there was. By the end of that Thursday night we had decided to get my new tires from Pep Boys because we had found a 20% off coupon. Unfortunately they only had 3 of the tires on Thursday so we had to wait till Friday so they could order an extra one.
When we were in the waiting room at Pep Boys my really good friend Noah Knight came and visited Blake and I, and it was so good to catch up with him. The time it took for them to finish everything with my car really flew by. When they told us my car was ready, and we went up to pay, they apologized that it had taken so long. Apparently my car had been ready for over a half hour before then and they were just so busy they couldn't get to the waiting room to tell me it was ready to go. Since we had to wait so long the amazing man working the cash register gave us a ton off on my tires on top of the 20% off! I ended up only having to pay $226.00 which I took as a major win in life!
After we left Pep Boys Blake and I went rock climbing at our favorite indoor gym The Quarry. We didn't have a lot of time so we just climbed for about an hour and a half before we had to leave. We had plans later that evening to carve pumpkins with our friends Jordan and Jentre, along with Jentre's roommates Kaci and Jessica.
After we were done climbing we met the group at The Branbury where Jentre, Kaci, Jessica, and I live. We then went and picked out our pumpkins in the good old Macy's parking lot. Picking out pumpkins is a pretty hard task. In the end Blake and I found the perfect pumpkin which, looking back on it wasn't so perfect because it couldn't stand up on it's own very well. Anyway, Kaci did a cute smiley face and Jess did an awesome Pokemon. This is a picture of Kaci and Jessica with Jordan and Jentre in the background looking really into their pumpkin carving.
Since Blake had pink eye last weekend and couldn't make it up to my parents house to carve pumpkins Friday was the first time we have got to carve pumpkins together and it was so much fun.
Blake has a weird obsession with saying "kitty cat", it is one of his favorite things to say, next to "steve". Which I think are two pretty strange things to say on a regular basis. Blake also used to say "turd-burglar" all the time until we decided to name all our hermit crabs turd-burglars. My logic is that if we name a thing something blake says all the time maybe he will stop saying it so much (even though that is one thing I love about him, his weirdness). The pumpkin below is my experiment with this and turns out it hasn't really stopped him from saying either of those things... So epic fail at the experiment but major win because our pumpkin turned out awesome, good old steve.
Jordan and Jentre carved a very cool bird. Their bird was inspired by Pinterest, Portland, and hipsters. It really was such a fun night carving pumpkins with all our friends.
At the beginning of last week Blake had started to feel kind of sick. For the last couple of months Blake has had pretty bad allergies which are not fun at all! This past week specifically we both thought his allergies were just being really bad but it turns out he actually had caught a cold. Which just means that last week was full of soup, Doctor Who, and resting! He will probably be mad that I put this picture up but he was just so funny and cute when he was sick, he looked like a giant green marshmallow all bundled up in his coat, making soup!
To make things even better towards the end of that week Blake found out that he had pink eye! I was even more bummed about this because that weekend we were supposed to spend Friday in Lehi at a murder mystery dinner my sister Shantel put together and Saturday up in Morgan carving pumpkins with the rest of my family! Sadly Blake wasn't able to make it because he would still have been contagious.
Now, every year, since before I can even remember the Walker family along with the Oliver family, would get together to carve pumpkins. The Oliver's are our very oldest family friends and they are an awesome family full of great sense of humors and a bunch of wild red-headed kids. As we all are getting older we have gone in different directions and the Oliver's moved to Nebraska so we were unable to carve pumpkins with them this year.
As much as we missed the Oliver's it was a good time with the Walker family! Jenna and Kevin came down from Idaho, Shantel, David, and Lydia came up from Lehi, and Jacob, my mom, and my dad were thrilled to have us home. This past Saturday was full of games, mainly whatzit? (which is really fun) and so many chip dips you could hardly count them all!
Later in that evening we started carving our pumpkins. We all had our ideas and went straight to work. I generally, for the past couple of years, have done Doctor Who themed pumpkins along with my brother Matthew, but this year I just decided to go with a rock climbing theme. I got a silloute of a climber from the internet and started my carving. When I was almost done it looked terrible, you couldn't really tell that there was a climber on it. I then had a little moment of insanity where I took my dad's power drill and on the other side of my pumpkin made one of the more classic Jack-O-Lantern faces out of anger at my pumpkin. (Yes I have issues)
Everyone else's pumpkins turned out awesome though! Here are the finished products!
David and Shantel's pumpkins
They went with a classic halloween theme with ghosts, graveyards, and pumpkins.
Jacob and my Dad's pumpkins
Jacob's pumpkin might fool you, but it is not a winning game of tick tack toe, it is actually the sign of an elleite "hacker" group, but not the bad hackers the good hackers.... man, it is to hard to explain but just know my little brother is awesome. ANYWAY, my Dad's was his favorite Rugby team, the All Blacks.
Just to preface Jenna and Kevin's pumpkins, here is a little update on Jenna. My sister Jenna is 6 months (27 weeks) pregnant! Only 3 more months left and I have a brand new niece. Right now I only have one niece and I can't wait for Jenna to have her baby girl. It is so amazing to see our family grow so much. Two of the five kids in the family are married with one grandchild and one on the way! Family is so awesome!
Jenna and Kevin's pumpkins
Here is my first attempt that I didn't like at all. where I am concerened my pumpkin carving this year was no good! I can't wait for next year maybe I will resort back to a Doctor Who theme, that always seems to turn out good :)
I don't say it enough but I am so grateful so spend time with my family. I love playing boardgames and just spending good quality time together. I am very blessed to be so close to my family. I can't wait to carve pumpkins next year at the Walker's annual pumpkin carving extravaganza!
Every year since I first moved down to Utah Valley I have gone to Cornbelly's. It is the most fun fall festival, for all ages! The first time I went was with my ward for FHE and I had so much fun I can't help but come back every single year. They have everything you can imagine for a night full of fall entertainment.
This past Friday night Blake, my boyfriend and I, drove up to Lehi, at Thanksgiving point to go to Cornbelly's. I had prepared well with multiple layers of pants and jackets, I was not going to be cold if my life depended on it. Even with all this preparation I was still shivering in the line to get in, so Blake being the amazing boyfriend he is ran and got his spare coat from his car. Thanks to him for the rest of the night I was warm and toasty!
When you first walk into Cornbelly's it is a little overwhelming! There are so many options of what to do, so making that first decision of what direction to walk is pretty difficult. Blake and I always try to do everything "strategically" so that we don't miss anything. We went to the children's area first just to look around, and it made me want to be a child again! I even convinced Blake to race horses with me which actually was pretty difficult!! It was more like waddling/running but it really was so much fun!
One thing I love that Cornbelly's has is a giant pumpkin tree! It is really awesome, it has pumpkins carved with everything from disney characters to Gordon B. Hinckley. This year was actually a huge disappointment because I found out that the pumpkins are actually plastic. Which makes sense because they sit there for a month or more and if they were real they would be really gross by the end of the season, I don't know why I didn't guess they were plastic before. Knowing they are plastic makes the intricate carvings on them a little less amazing and impressive. It is still pretty cool though and I love looking at all the different (plastic) pumpkins.
After that we just looked around some more, played in a room full of dried corn (my personal favorite), and headed toward the corn maze! Blake doesn't think he has ever done a corn maze up till this point in his life and that blows my mind because I love corn mazes! We totally rocked it and if we had been racing anyone else we would have dominated! For it being Blake's first corn maze he was pretty good at finding the way out!!
Since we were there at night they have a couple mini haunted attractions. The lines were really long so we didn't make it to all of them before they closed but we did go to a few. The first one we got in line for was called "The Creature", it was pretty awesome. The Creature is just a giant blown up monster that you walk through. It is weird, you walk through the whole body, past the heart, and out... well you know... anyways there are scary people throughout the whole thing that do a very good job at surprising you and are really frightening!
The next one we went to was called Big Top Tower and it had a clown theme. Bake and I loved this one even though I was pretty afraid the whole time it was really funny and entertaining with the clowns! If you had some sort of phobia of clowns however, I would not recommend it!
The last and scariest in my opinion was the one called Chaos Castle. It is just a maze made out of hay bails. When you first walk in it is completely silent and pitch black. The hay insulates the inside so it is eerily quit, and so dark. The second I walked in I was convinced I was going to walk back out. I had no idea if there were scary people waiting for us in the maze. If there weren't scary people in it, it would be almost fun to walk around in the pitch black, trying to find the exit. I convinced blake to wait for the next group to pass us and go in first so I could hear them scream, if they did scream I would know if there were people waiting to scare us!
When the group behind us entered almost immediately two giant gorillas came at us from two different directions, I was really freaked out. I closed my eyes for the rest of the maze and Blake was really brave to walked through it basically alone. The second I saw some sort of light I ran towards it and it just so happened to be the entrance not the exit. I didn't really care because I was so over that maze!
On the way out of Cornbelly's, Blake and I got the classic picture on the giant rocking chair. The man who took it and his wife, were so funny because his wife was telling him how to take it "better" than he was. He then asked her if she wanted to take it, and she said no, for him to! It was just the classic husband wife argument. He took a ton which I love because then you get to go through and find the one you like the most!
These are my favorite ones that the guy took! Corn Belly's was really so much fun and I am glad that I got to spend it with my favorite person!
Some of the best, most entertaining things in life are only fun because of who you are doing them with. I feel so fortunate to have met my boyfriend Blake because anything and everything, we do together immediately becomes the most fun thing to be doing, ever. That is why I think I like working on our saltwater tank. It is something that we both love and have an interest in and that we can do together, and I love that.
On Monday, Blake and I got a new fish, and a new coral! Since we have such a small tank (29 gallons) deciding on the fish we want is a huge decision. We can only have a certain amount of fish, per gallons in our tank. We were told once that we could have seven smaller fish by someone, and by another person that it is an inch of fish per five gallons. Since there are always a million different rules every other person has we think it will be best to be right around both of those rules. Which means we can only get 4-7 fish, depending on their size.
Our first fish, Andy, is a Clownfish. He is so cool! It is crazy the amount of personality one fish can have. Blake and I are huge fans of Clownfish, and we had been debating wether to get a second Clownfish for a while. When you have two Clownfish they can mate and get along really well. It is kind of weird actually, because a Clownfish, when it is younger is genderless. After it mates, the dominate one, usually the larger one becomes the female, and the smaller the male. They can flip-flop between sexes but generally that is the rule of thumb. I think that it is so interesting so Blake and I decided to get a second Clownfish.
Our saltwater store was having a sale on their Clownfish at the time so that helped us to make our decision. Some Clownfishes are not compatable if they are different species, but Andy, our first fish is an Ocellaris Clownfish. That means we just had to find another Ocellaris Clownfish that we liked, and we found the perfect one! He is yet to be named but he is a black Clownfish.
When we got home it was a little later in the evening, and at 8 o'clock the bright lights on the aquarium switch off to more of a lunar light, to signal the end of the day. When the lights switch Andy goes directly into his sleeping corner and falls fast asleep. It is so funny because he sleeps vertically, instead of horizontally, and he stays in the same spot in the corner.
Blake got to put the black fish into the tank. I felt kind of bad releasing our new fish into the water while Andy was sleeping because we didn't know what was going to happen. After the black Clownfish had acclimated we put him into the aquarium. He immediately swam over to Andy trying to wake him up to play.
You could tell Andy was cranky since he was trying to sleep but later that night they were swimming around the tank together like best friends. They even sleep right next to each other vertically in their little corner. Hopefully all the fish we get don't sleep in that corner because things are going to get pretty crowded!
I got to put the new coral in, once we decided where to place it! The new coral that we got is called Duncan Coral but it is also known as Whisker Coral. It is awesome and looks kind of like a flower. When I first put it into the tank it was closed up and nasty looking but later in the night it opened up and I think it looks really awesome.
Just as a side story, while we are on the subject of our saltwater tank. Blake, my boyfriend is in a band, called The Beautiful People of Belgium. He plays the drums and they all have a bunch of fun. One night while they were practicing in the basement I was upstairs on my computer and looking at the tank. I couldn't help but laugh at how Andy was swimming in the water. It almost looked like he was dancing to the the band's music. I tried to take a video of it but he sort of stopped doing it, so it isn't as good as at first.
I love listening to Blake and the band play. They are all pretty talented and it is just fun! Tonight they have a show but it is pretty lame because you have to be 21 and older, which I am not, to go. This is definitely one of the cons of dating a guy 10 years older than you! :)
My lovely older sister Shantel generally does a blog post every week called Friday Five. It just sums up the week nicely with the five main highlights, the five most important things that happened that week. I really love this idea, because even if nothing huge happened it is still a good way to remember the little things. I dropped the ball on this one because it is Sunday not Friday, so since I missed the cut off I just decided to go with six things instead of five. That way there is still alliteration in the title, and that is really important, right?
1. First of all my boyfriend Blake has been out of town since last Saturday. Every year his family goes to California to visit their relatives and to just have a fun vacation. I wasn't able to make the trip, and I have missed him so much while he has been gone. I obviously have been surviving but it is super lame when your best friend takes off without you for a whole week! Thanks to modern day technology I was still able to talk to him on the phone a ton, and we were even able to Skype a couple times. I am just really excited for him to get home tonight!
2. Since Blake has been gone his roommate Josh, has been feeding the fish, in our fish tank. That way I wouldn't have to drive all the way to his house, in South Provo, every day just to feed them. I did however have to check on the tank a couple times in the week just to make sure the certain levels, temperature, salinity, alkalinity, etc. were safe and normal.
When I first arrived at Blake's house on Tuesday the first thing that I noticed was that the Feather Duster, that we had just bought, that previous Friday, had moved all the way on the other side of the tank from where we had placed it. I was confused because they are only supposed to move a couple inches tops and that is just to get better positioned in the current. I then noticed that there was a little Hermit Crab on it and it was eating the parchment type layer off of the tube. When we first got it this is what the Feather Duster looked like, all covered in the first layer which is sort of tan and looks like paper.
I was pretty upset at that little Hermit Crab, mainly because we had just gotten the Feather Duster, and I didn't want the Hermit Crab to hurt it. I called Blake and based on everything we read I don't think that the hermit crab was bothering the Feather Duster to much. If it is really threatened the Feather Duster detaches it's crown (which is the feather duster part) from it's body. I really hope that the Hermit Crab stops because it is kind of freaky, you can almost see the worm through the clear part of the tube, and I don't like it. We are just going to keep an eye on it and make sure nothing bad happens.
Other than that our new corals are doing awesome. The Cinnamon Polyp opened up, and the Hammer Coral looks more at home than ever! After filling it up with some more water, and making sure the levels were fine I left hoping that the Feather Duster would be okay. I guess we will see next week if the Feather Duster has survived!
3. On Tuesday night I was fast asleep in bed. I was in a very deep sleep the type of sleep where you have the weridest dreams, and sleep so soundly. A little after 1 o'clock in the morning there was a pounding at my door. Since I was in such a deep sleep it was hard to tell what was in my dream and what was real. I have a sliding glass door in my room, so for a second I thought someone was outside trying to come in (totally freaked me out). Eventually I woke up enough to realize it was the Branbury maintenance man outside my bedroom door.
Apparently the 3rd floor had a flood (shocker) and it was leaking down through the apartments. Luckily (<--sarcasm), I was the only bedroom in my apt that was threatened by this flood/leak. Concequently he made me move all of my stuff out from under my bed, which was a lot since it was up on cinder blocks for extra storage space, and pile it on one side of my room. The carpet under my bed was soaked and there was mold growing up against my wall.
I am not a rocket scientist but if there was mold already there, I figured that it wasn't just from the flood that had happened that night, something probably had been leaking for a while. I was exhasted and since I had to wake up early in the morning I just went into the spare bedroom in our apt and fell asleep there.
The following morning I got a call from the Branbury office asking me to move into the epmpty bedroom, that I had slept in that night, indefinitely. They were not sure how long I would be unable to live in my room. When I got home from work that night, there were holes cut out of my wall and fans placed on my carpet.
Turns out not only did the water from the 3rd floor leak down through my wall, but the pipes from the bathroom next to my bedroom have been leaking since I moved in. They have to fix a bunch of stuff even before I have the option of moving back in. I have had so many issues with the Branbury it is so wild that I have had to deal with two flooding issues in less than a month. Oddly enough I still love it here, and I would take having to move into a spare bedroom to avoid mold and soaking carpet a million times over versus my last apt complex that charged me 150 dollars for trespassing on the other side of my shared room!
4. Every year Mountain Works, a climbing gear shop (which is awesome) helps to host the Reel Rock Tour. They sell tickets a couple months in advance and the premier of the movie is shown at UVU in the Ragan Theater. It is always a good time. A theater room, completely sold out, full of every sort of climber you would think of.
The climbing community in Utah Valley is so awesome! Everyone is very friendly so I love going to these types of things since you are sure to know a majority of the people in attendance. I went with my good friend Merto and the film was super awesome! Reel Rock is always broken into four short films with different stories. This year was so cool, I especially loved the one called Spice Girls, which was about bold climbing, and very inspiring to women!
5. General Confrence weekend! One of the best weekends of the year. I always look forward to General Conference. I love listening to the talks and getting the answers to all my questions and prayers, as well as just listening to the word of god from the Prophet, along with all the other leaders of our amazing and true church.
My roommates are not LDS so luckily, on Saturday, my sister Shantel invited me to her house in Lehi to watch Confrence with her husband David and daugher Lydia.
They are so awesome to always have me up to their house. Lydia was just so darling, she was wearing a cute bow, pink pajamas with a unicorn on them, and brown winter boots, the best combanation! I love the Peaden's becuase I always have fun. They had confrence bingo, which is the best game ever invented. You just put a treat on the square and when they talk about that subject you get to eat the treat! It was awesome and so delicious! I don't know if I say it enough how blessed I am to have family so close!
6. Ever since I was one and half I have had a best friend named Lauren Larsen. We have been best friends practically since she was in the womb. My mom baby-sat her older brother David, and when Lauren was born she became a part of our family right away. That little bald girl was a riot! Every day was a new adventure for us, and we spent all of our time together. She was a year younger than me so we were not in the same grade in school but the second the bell rang that signaled the end of the day we were side by side, and during the summers we were inseparable!
It is funny how we were so close as friends because we couldn't be more different people. Lauren absolutley loves the lime light, I am pretty sure her first college play was when she was 5 years old, and she definitely didn't stop there. She also loved playing dress up and getting all fancy in necklaces and scarfs. I however can't get up in front of a large group of people without dying of fear and seemed to always be the tom boy compared to her. Despite her being an extravert and me, being an introvert, while growing up, we were still best friends.
When I first found out Lauren got engaged I was so happy for her! It is the weirdest thing to grow up, and get older. I moved from Ephraim when I was twelve years old and Lauren is my first childhood friend to get married. It was a lot different to me than when my high school friends got married, because I have known her since before she could walk.
When I first saw her in her dress I completley lost it and started crying. I am so excited for this little doll to spend the rest of eternity with the love of her life. They are so darling together and I am just happy that she found her perfect guy.
I have had one true love my entire life, ever since I was a little kid I could always count on Apple Crisp. This delicious dessert is a family favorite and every Sunday that my wonderful cook, of a dad made Apple Crisp it was the best Sunday ever! One of the main ingredients for this delightful treat is obviously apples, and the apples that we use (that make it taste so good) are home canned apples. This leads to having a Saturday of canning most years around September.
This weekend was one that my sisters, and I have been waiting for, for months. It is apple canning time! Saturday morning I woke up and drove to Morgan I took the more scenic route so I could appreciate the beautiful fall colors, the rolling hills, and mountains.
When I arrived in Morgan my family already had everything set up to start canning they were just waiting on my sister Jenna, and my mother to get back from the grocery store, with lunch. After they had gotten back and we had eaten lunch we started working right away.
My little brother Jacob was on his homecoming-day-date so he couldn't make it. I can't believe he is old enough to be a senior it blows my mind! It seems like just yesterday that he was twelve and lighting things on fire in the middle of the street.
Since Jacob was gone and my twin brother Matthew is on his mission, the only people in attendance for canning were my oldest sister Shantel, her husband David, my second oldest sister Jenna, her husband Kevin, and my Father. I love spending time with my family, it is one of my favorite things to do. We have been very blessed to be so close growing up and I love how we have maintained that relationship.
While we were canning we established a system and quickly accomplished the task with a few set backs while we waited for some of the glass jars we needed to be to be cleaned all the way by the dishwasher.
After that was all over with, we finished with a little over 50 bottles of apples which means so much apple crisp! This brings so much joy into my heart, one thing that does not bring joy into my heart is my Subaru Outback. A few days ago my breaks started making weird grinding noises, so I tried to drive it as little as possible until I could come home and have my wonderful Dad (who is a great mechanic) take a look at it. We ended up having to replace the driver side rear rotor and both rear break pads.
The driver side rear break pad was down to the metal so that is why we had to replace the rotor as well. This is a picture of the passenger side rear break pad compared to the new one we got.
My dad really is such a blessing in my life, not only because he helps fix my car, but that definitely is a plus!
In other news, my sister is expecting!!! I am so excited for my new niece to get here! Jenna is due in January which is also when my brother Matthew gets home from his mission, so January is the best month ever.
Jenna's husband Kevin recently had a birthday, last Saturday. Since they live in Idaho we were unable to spend that special day with them. They luckily were in town this weekend so we celebrated it then! On of the best parts about other people's birthday's are that everyone else gets to have cake and icecream! HAPPY (late) BIRTHDAY KEVIN.
Jenna and Kevin left early Sunday morning. It really was so good to see them. The rest of the day was filled with church, a linger longer, and quality time spent with my family. With this weekend gone and over with I can definitely say that I am looking forward to canning apples next september!
