Moved In

We are all moved in and trying to unpack. Thank you to all who helped us move in. We don't have internet currenty but should have it installed sometime around Christmas. Hopefully I'll get some final pictures of the completed house up soon.

In the mean time I am enjoying my 5 minute comute to work-instead of 30-- and am busy getting ready for the Holiday weekend.

Days till we move in

I know I need to post more pictures showing the changes that have been happening with our house. But just know that we are not that far from being completed and we should be moving in soon. I am crossing my fingers to be in a least a week before Christmas. I guess Christmas would come a little bit earlier for us then

In other news:
I got released from my calling
There are only 8 more days till school is out for Christmas break
My sister arrives from Logandale on the 19th--YEAH!
My brother has been on his mission for over 1 1/2 years--amazing!
I only have 5 more Christmas presents to buy
We are getting our huge sectional couch recovered so currently we don't have anything to sit on
we bought a new couch for our great room!

D..D...D..Defense in Royal Blue

BYU vs Utah



Our defense won that game for us. They were amazing! I love when the Cougars win. Always makes for a better weekend and evening. Yes, the offense was good but not game changing like the defense.

I loved when the Cougars came out wearing the old-school royal blue uniforms to celebrate the 25th anniversary of being national champs. Three stripes down the side and names on the back. Traditional.



Game winning catch by Andrew George made for an awesome rush of the field after the game.



Final score 26 BYU, 23 Utah

The Beast

I have dubbed this Thanksgiving as "the Beast". There a few few reason why this applies

1. The 20 lb turkey I bought was a beast.



2. The turkey was a beast to cook. In fact it was so big that it wouldn't fit in the pot so I had to resort to method two--roasting it in the oven--not my favorite. It took 5 hours to cook.



Garrett started to carve the turkey. However, it wasn't quite ready so back in the oven it went.

3. The amount of meat that the turkey produce was unreal.



We will be eating turkey for the rest of the week.

4. We had 4 pies for 6 people. It is now Saturday and we still have pie left over.



5. It was Adam and my first experience in participating in Black Friday and man was that a beast. We did not do as well as well hoped--I guess sleeping in too long has something to do with it. (I think Black Friday had more meaning when you are shopping for children because all the ads were mostly toys and clothes. Neither on my list unless a TV counts as a toy. And to Adam it does).

Lucky for us we got to share Thanksgiving with our friends the Barlows. We divided up the food and we had a feast of a Thanksgiving at our house. We had so many leftovers that we had dinner the next night together too. Still, we have leftovers.



After dinner we saw The Blind Side. AMAZING! one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. Go see it in the theater--it is worth it. Bradley slept like a champion through the entire movie.





We really enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner with our friends and the relaxing weekend it has been so far. There are so many things to be grateful for this year including our jobs, the gospel, the house we are building, friends, family, and being married each other for three years now.
Always something to be grateful for. Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving

Enjoy your Holiday weekend! Christmas is around the corner.

New Moon

I went to the Nordstrom Premier showing of New Moon on Thursday night at 9:30 with a group of friends. Nordstrom gave us these very official looking lanyards to wear and they rented out the entire University Mall theater to their customers. It was great. I would not have seen it if I had to wait till 12:00 am. However, many of my students saw it at 12, 3, and 5 am on Friday.

Overall, I liked the movie. Yes, there were cheesy parts ( Bella and Edward running in the woods together), but the make-up team was much better in this movie (expect Edwards make-up), and Jacob was excellent. You should go see it now that you don't have to wait in line at midnight.

Our 3rd Anniversary

November 10th, 2006



Adam and I were sealed three years ago. Being married is such a blessing. I look back at our three years together and I can't believe how fast it had gone by. I love every moment.
I love you more each day Adam.
Happy Anniversary!


We celebrated by sharing gifts and eating dinner at the Chef's table. We hadn't been back there since the day he proposed.



Adam got me these lovely flowers from the Flower Basket Boutique



I made Adam this book of pictures of our last year together

I love you!

Wood Connection

Have you been there?
GO!
It is amazing. I went today to buy supplies for our Relief Society activity coming up and I couldn't leave there with out buying these whimsical Christmas trees--and some other festive wood decorations.



It is in Murray off of 7200 South. Go...you won't regret it.
Anybody else getting excited for Christmas?

Stone, Paint, closets

We love our stone. When we picked it out we were so excited to see it with our stucco color. A week or two later we drove by the house to see the stone and, well, I didn't like it. It looked so orange. Orange! We did not order orange stone. I started to stress and consider what we were going to do. Buy new stone...keep the stone...maybe the order was wrong...why orange!

Adam and I stressed all day long. We finally decided to drive back up to the house and good thing we did because as soon as we saw the house it was like night a day. Early that day it looked orange and when we drove by later it looked so good. Come to find out when the mason lays the stone it has to be wet. Thus, our stone looked orange. We were so relieved to see our stone dry.

Now we can proudly say that we love our stone and our stucco. Maybe simple things to be so pleased about--but to us it us.







My father-in-law and my brother-in-law did all the finish work and it looks amazing.





View from the road that leads to our neighborhood. I love American Fork, Canyon. How can you not enjoy that view.

Cement and Doors

We now have a walk way...



A drive way...



and interior doors!

Faculty Halloween

Every year the faculty at Timberline, where I teach, dresses up for Halloween with the students. The girls I carpool with and I also chaperoned the dance after school. Being at the dance brought back memories of being in middle school. Always enjoyable.



We all teach in the same pod at school--we have the most incredible pod.

Incredibles

Adam and I dressed up as the Incredibles for Halloween this year. We made our first appearance as Elasta Girl and Mr. Incredible at our ward Halloween party Thursday night. See more of the costumes from our ward here. Yes, the costumes were made by yours truly--authentic, home made, incredible costumes!

Happy Halloween!

Game Day in Provo

Yes, we went to Game Day in Provo when they came last Saturday. It was an opportunity we couldn't pass up. We weren't really close to the game day stand but we cheered and ended the morning with breakfast at Magelby's.





Walking to the crowd



We went with friends to game day and also met up with Adam's family

Chicago

I had a great opportunity to visit the amazing city of Chicago last week. The school where I teach, Timberline Middle School, was taking 12 teachers to visit a couple of schools there (Stevenson HS, Woodlawn MS) because we are trying to model some of their systems. It was pretty much an all-expenses-paid trip and I learned a lot. I also got to enjoy the city and the pizza.

Navy Pier






Millennial Park

Millennial Park has a ton of monuments through out it and it is also where Obama gave his acceptance speech, hence the patriotic statue of liberty pose.

Woodlawn Middle School and the TMS teachers



The Sears tower, which has been renamed the Willis tower. The glass ledge lookout is very intimidating.



My one goal while visiting Chicago was to try Chicago Style Pizza. We went to Giadarno's and it was delicious!





I can't wait to go back to Chicago. I was very impressed with the city and the people I went with were fantastic. Maybe next time Adam will come too and we can go Wrigley Field.

Stucco

We love the color of our stucco!

(story behind the stucco--for remembrance sake on my part).
Adam and I went driving through a neighborhood to compare stucco samples on others peoples houses who's stucco we liked. We found this one house that we really liked. However, none of our stucco samples match. So, being the outgoing person that I am, I went and knocked on their door to ask them. The conversation went something like this:

Britt: Hello, my husband and I were driving by your house and noticed how lovely your house is. We actually are building a house and we really like the color of stucco. Do you by chance know the color of stucco you chose?
Gardeners: Thank you. I can't remember what color we chose, but please come in and let me see if I can find it.
Britt: Thank you. (I walk in and leave Adam in the car--hidden--and wait for them to find it. They look for about 10 minutes and in the mean time Adam calls me.
Adam: Where did you go?
Britt: They invited me in while they look it up.
Adam: um, okay. Can you hurry?

Turns out they couldn't find the color but they gave me the number of their builder so that I could call him and ask. About 20 phone calls and 3 messages later the builder calls me back and tells me the color. It only took 3 weeks to find the color and discover what it was--but it was worth it because we love the color we chose. Choosing the colors for the interior and exterior of our house is one of the best perks of building our own home.

Pumpkin Patch

On Friday evening we went with the Evans, Alders, and Barlows to the pumpkin patch at Hee Haw Farms in Pleasant Grove.

Adam and I found a perfect pumpkin that we will be carving hear in the near future. I love carving pumpkins! Everyone in my family stills gets together and carves them. We are never too old to find joy in squishing the goop between our fingers.

Hee Haw Farms also has a complementary Hay ride, various slides to ride, farm animals, including the huge pig Leroy, and a corn maze.

This was our third year going and I never tire of picking our pumpkins from the vine. It is a great fall season activity that we enjoy each year.

Sick

I took my first sick day yesterday. I felt terrible when I woke up and I only felt worse as the day went on. Still, I went to school and tried to teach. That failed.

I ended up showing a movie instead--my students loved it. I was wearing a jacket, a coat, a scarf, and gloves and I was still freezing. My students kept asking me why I was wearing gloves. I told them I was freezing cold and not feeling well. I guess I can take a hint.

After lunch I spoke with my principal, who is so understanding, and he got a substitute within 10 minutes to cover my classes. Needless to say, I went home early and slept.

When Adam got home we:
1. Ate Zupas for dinner
2. Watched SYTYCD
3. Watched some of Glee
4. Watched the Proposal.
Great movie. Go see it. We saw it in the theater and both like it so we decided to buy it.

Being sick is miserable. But there is ONE good thing. It is Fall Break for Alpine School District which means no school Thursday and Friday. At least I don't have to write sub lesson plans for the next two days while I get better.

Gray

Our house is looking very gray lately--but it is a good thing because

we got a brown coat (I don't know why it is called that when it is gray) so that we can apply the stucco this week.



and second, we got a dry wall put up this week as well.





I don't how they stand all day on those stilts--but they are really good at it. They even walk up and down the stairs. Impressive.