To anyone still reading this blog after my five month break, I apologize. I'm sure we all know how it is - life gets busy and my list of things to blog about increases as blogging drops lower and lower on my to-do list. I really admire people who manage to update their blogs regularly even when they are crazy busy. It is a talent I tell you!
This post is long and mainly for my own selfish journaling purposes, but I hope it will be shortly followed by more frequent and current posts about our life now. I won't make promises, but I will try try try. If you are interested then feel free to read on, if not then the extraordinary amount of pictures in this post can give you a quick glimpse of our life over the last couple of months.
First off, school. School pretty much dominates both of our lives these days. Fall semester I did my clinical rotation at the VA hospital in Salt Lake on the surgical unit. While working with adults is not my long-term career goal, there is something I really like about the veteran population. They are so willing and patient to let students learn. Like when I missed putting in an IV and the patient didn't even care. He just said, "Poke me again, I don't care, you need to learn. Trust me, I have been through worse pain." The VA was definitely a great place to start my nursing experience.
My clinical group. It is amazing how close I got to these people over the few months we were together. I couldn't have done it without them.
And one day I took pictures for a brochure about upgraded precautions at the hospital.
Don't worry...I didn't put this picture in the brochure.
In our house fall means football...BYU games, intramural games, and of course the NY Giants.
At the blackout game we made our own shirts...and they were definitely the coolest ones there.
Carson plays on an intramural football team with his friends pretty much all year. I grew up watching my siblings play all kinds of sports, so I love going to Carson's games. It feels natural to me.
Can you tell he loves the Giants?
The unfortunate thing about fall football is the snow at the end of the season. Seriously, these games were freezing.
Next up, Halloween! If you know us, you know we love decorating for holidays. If you follow me on Instagram you have already seen these...so sorry.
And what is Halloween without caramel apples? Nothing I tell you...nothing. They are definitely a must.
And while we are already making fruit unhealthy, why not add some chocolate? At least that's the way I think.
At Carson's house they always have doughnuts for Halloween...so we figured we should too.
Any excuse for sugar right?
Now...Thanksgiving. Carson and I went to Las Vegas to celebrate with my family. I ran in the "Catch the Gobbler 5k". This race has become somewhat of a tradition around my house - I run and my dad braves the cold to to cheer me on and get a pre-Thanksgiving turkey dinner after (how his stomach can handle that at 7 in the morning I will never understand). This year my youngest brother joined the race (his first 5K!) and Carson joined my dad in the cheering section.
The course is always the same and my dad knows the best places to stand by now so I think we have 6 versions of this same exact picture...all from different years. Somehow I didn't get a picture after the race with Matthew, but that just means we have to do another race together.
Like always, Thanksgiving dinner was fantastic. I love getting together with all of the family we have in Vegas...and eating...I love eating (I feel like we have already gone over that).
Another Thanksgiving tradition we have is a man-made dessert competition. Emphasis on the man. We figure that the women in the family have spent enough time cooking the dinner that the men can handle dessert. This year we had entries by Carson, Matthew, and my two uncles. As always, the desserts did not disappoint. If I remember right Rob ended up winning but Carson got the most votes in a few categories (maybe if I blogged right after it happened I would remember, but I have no idea right now).
Carson's entry was an apple tart with streusel topping - but he gave it a French name for effect ;)
One of my favorite places to go in Vegas is the LDS temple. This is where Carson and I were married, and for that reason and others, it is probably our favorite temple. We decided to visit while we were in town and, like always, it did not disappoint.
Finally, my family's last Thanksgiving tradition is shooting in the desert.
Again, another picture that I am sure I have several versions of from different years - with different guns of course.
My mom wanted a family picture while we were all together (minus Drew who gets home in a week!).
I love these people so much and am so grateful for everything they do for me. That's really what Thanksgiving is about right? Spending time with the people you love and giving thanks for everything you have.
We also took some family pictures of our own.
Okay, now on to Christmas. This year we stayed in Utah for Christmas to celebrate with Carson's family.
By now you know that Carson loves the Giants right? Well, he tries to incorporate them into everything...including Christmas.
So of course he needed a Giants Santa hat.
And remember how we love decorating for holidays? Well Christmas is no exception. This year I made an advent calendar so we could count down the days...and have an excuse to eat the chocolate inside (again with the eating thing).
These boxes were super easy to put together with a little help from my Silhouette Cameo. I love that thing.
Last year we had a huge problem agreeing on a tree, but luckily this year we walked into the lot, looked at this tree, and knew it was the one (and then second-guessed ourselves as the employee almost ruined it by dragging it through the lot...but that's not the point). Next we can work on agreeing on the lights for the tree, but this year I let Carson have his way...hence the colored lights.
A little idea courtesy of Pinterest...black wrapping paper, red twine, and a white paint pen. It turned out really cute with the rest of our red, black, and white wrapping paper. Is it weird that I like to coordinate my wrapping paper? I get that from my mom.
I love Christmas for all of the traditions that come with it. One of the fun (and sometimes difficult) parts about being married is combining traditions. Sometimes they complement each other and sometimes they are completely opposite (my family has white lights on the tree, Carson's has colored), but it's always fun seeing what others do for Christmas. One of Carson's traditions that I especially love is the homemade gingerbread house. Carson is serious about his house and has a "traditional" way of decorating it. Maybe next year I will make two so we can each decorate one.
One tradition both our families have is sugar cookies. Who doesn't like Christmas sugar cookies?
Toffee...one of my family traditions...and a delicious Christmas treat. I always eat WAY too much of this stuff. It's a good thing I only make it once a year.
Collin and Jessie came to Utah for Christmas with their cute baby Landon. We seriously could not get enough of this boy. I love how much Carson loves kids. It makes me excited to have our own someday.
This is Carson's favorite - nap time with a baby on his chest.
Now for the pictures from Christmas morning at Carson's parent's house.
Isn't that tree amazing?
Carson's stocking.
My stocking.
Jessie and I used my Cameo (there is that amazing machine again) to make these shirts for Collin and Carson. And no, he does not wear it in public.
Carson "playing Santa".
We went to a restaurant in Salt Lake called the Roof a few days after Christmas. The food was amazing but one of my favorite parts was the view of the Salt Lake LDS temple.
Temple Square is gorgeous at Christmas time. After dinner we walked around and looked at all the lights and the candy displays in the windows in the area. It was a perfect Christmas time activity.
Bad picture, amazing display (and company).
Oh yeah...it snowed a lot during the Christmas break.
Good thing we didn't need to go anywhere because my car was good and stuck for a few days.
After Christmas we drove down to Brianhead resort to do some snowboarding with my family. I am amazed at how good my brother and sister have gotten. How do kids catch on to stuff like that so fast?
One of my favorite things about Brianhead is the view...so gorgeous. Oh and Dani...I think you missed the memo about wearing green.
How pretty are those red rocks with snow on them?
During the Spring semester I had my clinical rotation at Primary Children's Medical Center on the infant unit. I absolutely loved it. For this rotation I also had the opportunity to go to Shriner's Hospital and watch a surgery. Shriner's is an amazing place and it was a really cool experience.
To go into the operating room I had to change into special scrubs - paper scrubs. I didn't know you could make legitimate clothes out of paper. Oh, and you know how operating rooms are really cold? They are even colder when you are wearing paper. Trust me.
While I was busy at the hospital, Carson was busy in school too. In one of his classes he made a longboard out of carbon fiber - the same stuff they use in the Boeing 787.
He bought a longboard and stripped it completely down until just the wood was left, then he molded the carbon fiber around it, powder coated the trucks, put it back together, and added his own grip tape. He is too attached to it to ride it though...
For Valentine's Day we continued our holiday decoration trend by making some subway art canvases.
I love how Carson gets into my projects. He always wants to be the one to paint my subway art - it is probably the perfectionist in him.
The finished product.
Another Valentine's Day project thanks to Pinterest and my Cameo. I am telling you, I love that thing.
And then we made a subway art for St. Patrick's Day too.
This one wasn't actually for us, it was for an Etsy customer. I am so glad that she was happy with it and loves it as much as I do.
Around this time, some of my friends from school decided that we needed a little break from all of our studying, so we got together for a fun night at the Paint Mixer. I had never heard of it before, but it was so much fun. It is an art studio in Park City that teaches a class each night on a different painting. Even though it is a class, it is super chill - the instructor tells you a step and then turns the music up really loud while everyone does their thing. Oh and they sell wine and soda for you to drink while you paint. My friends all enjoyed the wine to help them reveal their inner Van Gogh...but I was able to release my artistic side while sober.
My favorite part of the night was seeing how everyone's paintings were unique even though we all had the same instructions. I really could see people's personalities in their art. Overall, I was pretty impressed with how mine turned out.
Okay...we are up to Easter! To keep with our love of decorating and holiday traditions, we started the season by dying Easter eggs.
And we made some of our favorite Easter (or any holiday really) treats.
I am so glad that M&Ms are made in holiday colors. They give me an excuse to make yummy treats like these.
And of course Carson needed a basket on Easter morning.
As the weather is getting warmer we are enjoying more time outside. A few weeks ago we had dinner in the park with some friends. It was the perfect weather for throwing the football and baseball around...and eating of course (food!).
All of our husbands play on the same intramural football team so we get to spend a lot of time together. I love it!
To almost completely catch you up, another intramural football season has just ended. Carson's team made it all the way to the semi-finals and I was able to make it to most of the games. I'll call that a success.
Those boys are lucky to have such a great cheering section.
Thank you for staying with me to the end! Now you know what we have been up to since October. Let's see if I can keep up with this blogging thing now.
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