Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving break went way too fast for us! This was one of BYU's first breaks longer than a day. We are already counting down the days till Christmas break! We spent most of our time at my parents house. Tay had to have surgery this week so it was our job to entertain Tori and Taylor's roommate who was down for the week, Tanya. For this Holiday's treat, I decided to attempt my first pumpkin roll. While it was not easy it turned out so so good! It was very yummy and something I will make again for sure. Stratton also had his first sleepover at our place this week. Ice cream, Nintendo, lots of Toy Story 3 and sleeping in our bed led to a fun, little party. I am already getting started on some Christmas crafts and have all my decorations up! We can't wait for Christmas! More crafts will come soon!

Halloween

Halloween for us this year was pretty chill. We went to our ward trunk-or-treat which ended up being indoors and pretty boring... After that we went up to our parents house to see Tori, Stratton, and Easton in their costumes. We ate, played games, and just hung out all night. Sunday we went back up to my parents house for Tori's birthday party. She wanted me to make cake pops for her cake so i decided to make cute little mummy ones.


This is a picture from Bakerella's website but these ones were easy enough that mine actually looked like hers!Glen found this giant inflatable deer head online so i of course had to be the hunter.

A present for my Brother

The other day, my brother saw a beanie with a beard connected to it. He asked me if I could try and make one for him. So... I compiled all my crochet experience which I had learned in highschool to make one for him. It turned out pretty good. Its all made of yarn and I crocheted it all. I was surprised it turned out the way it did. And, apparently, so was Ryun.

HALLOWEEN

Its that time again! We celebrated tonight by carving pumpkins. Kandace carved the cat and I carved the whatever. We still don't know what it is. The ward is having a trunk-or-treat and we have a great scene planned for our trunk and surroundings. Pictures to come.

Our ward had a friends for scouting auction this last week. They thought it would be better than going around the ward, asking for money. We agreed and volunteered a baked good for the auction. For those of you who know my wife, she loves to make cake pops, and I being her little sous chef, assisted in making cake pops. We then dropped them off because we had to go to family pictures. At what first seemed like a good idea to make them for the auction, later turned to stress for her as she wondered if her cake pops would even be sold at the auction. I texted one of my sources at the auction, and they informed us that they had just sold for over $20! Talk about a confidence boost! We made them in honor of Halloween. We were glad we could help contribute to friends of scouting through the ward in a way that was so much fun!

Spiders!!!

So were sitting on the couch the other day, just watching some tv, and a little spider happened to descend from its web and land on Kandace's stomach. Before I knew it, she let out a blood curdling scream! (Exactly like the one below) I am talking about the one off Home Alone 1 when Kevin puts that spider on Marv's face. It was like 9:00 at night. I am pretty sure the neighbors though that I was killing her... Darn Spiders...

Trying New Things

I am finally getting back to crafts! I have seen so many things i have wanted try lately! This summer i fell in love with red velvet cup cakes and found a good recipe for red velvet cake on Bakerella. It turned pretty good... it tasted soo good just didn't really turn out red.. but im working on it. Next Jocelyn and I made Halloween subway art. I got the idea from the blog http://tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com/. It took a little while but turned out really cute! We just cut a bunch of Halloween sayings from my cricket out on vinyl. I know its a little early for Halloween stuff i just get so excited for holiday crafts! Here are the pictures!

Our new friend

Kandace walked outside into our stairwell the other day and asked what was up in the corner. I came out and looked up... and saw our new little friend. He is a small brown bat and his name is Charles. He has shown some signs of life. Does he really look that scary? He moves a couple inches, changing his spot throughout the day. I did a little experiment to see how good their hearing is. I ate potato chips below him. His ears would twitch frivolously every time I would crunch on the chips. He has done no harm to us and has posed no threat. He is growing on me and terrifying Kandace. We have called the apartment complex twice and they said they would do something about him. But they have not yet. I don't seem to mind... If you want to learn more about the bats of Utah, I found this cool pdf. I know, I am a biologist right? https://fs.ogm.utah.gov/pub/mines/amr.../batposter/pallidbatposter.pdf

My guitar history

My brother happened to do a post on his bicycle history and it was very intriguing. So I decided to do a personal history on something I am adamant about; my guitars. From guitar #1 to guitar #5. I don't have them all anymore. I ended up buying and selling them to see how good of an upgrade I could get for a small price. So far... I have spent only $50 extra altogether to upgrade from #1 to #5. It was a pretty sweet deal!

Guitar #1. Oscar Schmidt dreadnought-Got if for Christmas at age 17.

Guitar #2. Oscar Schmidt Acoustic Electric-Guitar used to win my wife over in song.

Guitar #3. Harmony acoustic guitar-forgettable.

Guitar #4. Ovation Applause AA-32-Second all time favorite guitar ever, would have kept it if not for the last guitar.

Guitar #5. Aria Hummingbird-Dream guitar (for now) and will not buy another one till after vet-school as of yesterday, according to the deal I made with Kandace.

Happy Anniversary! As of August 14th! We had a great time during our anniversary. Poor Kandace was sick the whole time though. It was hard for her to taste the wonderful food at the melting pot. We didn't realize how much food we were ordering until it was too late. Artichoke and cheese fondue, sirloin steak, shrimp, duck, veggies, salads, chocolate fondue, etc... We will definitely go again. We stayed at embassy suites for the night because we were up in Salt Lake for a wedding anyways. Great Hotel! We went there on our wedding night also. Love you Babe!

Better Late Than Never...

This is going to be a long post.. We start with the 4th of July. We started it off going to the stadium of Fire with Taylor and Eric and it was so good! Carrie Underwood was Amazing! Sadly, we left our camera so no pictures of that. For the actual 4th of July ,we celebrated it at Bob's house. One of the best 4th of July parties we have yet attended! We had a great BBQ, amazing fireworks and ended the night with ice shot glasses. Thanks Bob! Also here are a few of my 4th of July crafts. Next, one of the reasons it took so long to write a new post was because we moved down to Provo. Lets just say we are not moving again till we absolutely have too! We are almost done getting everything unpacked. The best part about our new place is a large covered deck. We decided now would be the perfect time to buy a porch swing for our new deck. Glen found an old one on KSL and with a little handy work, new wood and new paint it turned out really well! We also got a new BBQ for our birthday's to really make for the perfect deck. Lastly was Amy and Jordan's wedding. Everything went perfect and Amy looked beautiful! We are so happy for them and know they have waited a LONG time for that day to come!



Before...

and after..




This is what Stratton did most the time during the fireworks..

It is SUMMER! We have had many projects so far this spring/summer and are happy to have finished them. I just went fishing for my first time with brother-in-law Jared and had a blast! Kandace has been working hard on homemade crafts such as: earring holders, shadow boxes and candle holders. We still have a lot of summer ahead of us and more projects and fishing trips to come.
Shadow box for Dad's birthday

Catching Croppie at the lake

Earring stand for Kay's Birthday and Candle holders

Earring stand for herself cause she liked it so much

Birthdays!

The fourth was my birthday and Glen took me up to Park City for shopping and a night away. We stayed at the Westgate hotel in the Canyons and it was sooo nice! Even though it was only one night it was a great little vacation. My favorite part of the room was the giant tub! (i want one of those one day). Next was Stratton's birthday! Because of his obsession with Toy Story he had to have a Toy Story birthday.



The opening of the presents started like this...


but after getting a lawn mower it ended with him being pretty happy.

This is the beautiful cake shay made! Thanks shay!

FOOD!!

This post is all about FOOD The first pictures are glen's creation. If any of you like Tempura then you have to come try Glens because he is pretty much a pro from his mission. We have chicken, carrots, zucchini, and potatoes. Soooo good! Second I am obsessed with making deserts, not even for me to eat; I just love to see what I can make. There is a blog where I get most my inspiration. Bakerella.com. I have made pudding cups out of melted chocolate, sorry no picture and my favorite Cake pop’s! Here are the pictures! The first is a regular cake pops and then the last pictures are cupcake cake pops.

Vacation!!!

So, we had a little vacation this weekend before school and work start back up. We decided to head to sunny St. George (which apparently was not very sunny till the day we left). We were under dressed compared to those at Zions and it was a little to cold to hike the narrows. We did lounge by the pool and shop the outlets though. On our way back to the hotel from Zions, we happened to stop at a trading post gift shop to see if we could get a cactus for Kandace. It just so happened that this place had a petting zoo. There were donkey's, deer, horses, bunnies, al pacas, and big horn sheep. We fed them carrots and (I) pet them. While we love vacations, an end to this one was particularly disappointing because we knew when we would be able to have a next one, which is never ha ha. Or that is what it seems like.

March-April

We have two weeks left of school then its off to St. George for a small vacation before we start school and work all over again!! Because I am obsessed with craft blogs I have recently tried a few things I have seen. For Easter I made a wreath out of eggs covered with papers from a book. It took about 4 hours to do, but it turned out really good! Also one of my favorite blogs is Bakerella. We decided to try making some of her cake pops. While they were suppose to be chicks, they just did not turn out like them so we changed them to a more simple design , (Glen's idea) and they turned out really good! here they are! Back in march we had a little March Madness party with our friends and made homemade wings and everything! Also just so everyone knows you don't need any knowledge of the teams to win. I beat glen in our bracket tournament.. had to get that out there:)








Katie was a sleep in this picture haha