Sacramento Weekend

The state of sunshine and Palm trees

Tracy was asked to be in the wedding of his good friend Adam this past weekend in Sacramento, California. We planned on Tracy going by himself because I was unable to get the time off of work. Tracy got his plane ticket and he and Ryan were set to go. That Wednesday before the wedding I was asked to switch shifts with a co-worker giving me that weekend off. So then it was game on, I found a plane ticket, a little pricey as it was the last minute, and somehow what should have been an hour flight turned out to be more than five hours of traveling, three airports and two flights later... but I made it!

After Landing in Sacramento I found a new appreciation for the city we have until this past weekend only driven through. It was a LOT prettier than the view you get from HWY 80 on your way to San Francisco, it also doesn't help that we somehow end up driving through during rush-hour, which is never a good experience. Nope I didn't take these pics but wanted to show how pretty the city truly is....ta da.

The Bride and Groom in their engagement pic... so cute!

Adam and Malia

Ryan, Malia and Adam

I know I look thrilled but you have to remember I had been traveling all day, and yes this was the best pic of us at the rehearsal dinner. EeWW!

Tracy and the mother of the groom.

The Best Man Santos and Ryan

Ryan and the Groom

Mr. and Mrs. stone
(Thanks for all your help with the clean-up of spilled drinks by he who shall remain nameless.)

The Happy couple taking their rehearsal dinner shots of Patrone!And then it was Malia's turn Thanks for allowing us to share in your rehearsal dinner we had a great time, great friends, food and fun, and I am glad I made it after all!

WEDDING DAY FUN!

Tracy and Adam the groom

So Adam got all of his groomsman boat shoes to wear in the wedding. He gave his groomsman these really cool boat shoes at the rehearsal dinner the night before. Tracy was just sooooo excited about his boat shoes in one fluid motion he ripped off the flops he had been wearing and threw on his swanky new boat shoes! Well in his haste and excitement Tracy threw the shoe box to the boat shoes under the table and danced the rest of the night in his fancy new shoes. Somehow Tracy failed to notice that in the boat shoes box were a pair of very specific green argyle socks to also be worn at the wedding. Apparently Tracy did not know that there was anything else in that box and it went out with the trash. Luckily one of Adam's other groomsman had a broken foot and actually was only able to wear one of his green argyle socks and was able to let Tracy wear the other if nothing else but for the sake of the wedding pictures. He was actually able to make it work and this is how he looked at the wedding!

The Beautiful Bride

(Loved the Dress!)

Adam and his beautiful little sister Laurel

Tracy and Best Man Santos' Madre

Jim, me and Ryan

The Beautiful Bride celebrating!
The bride going through the gauntlet

The Brown clan + JP
Derrick, Bill, Barbra, Jim and Kerri

Jim and Barbra

Me, Kerri, Ryan, Derrick, Champion and Amanda

Me and Ryan trying to stay cool during the ceremony

Wedding fun!

Barb and the Groom

The HotelAnd this is where we ended the night. Funny story, so I went up to bed before Tracy while he stayed and hung out in the lobby with friends. I decided to wait up because I knew he probably didn't have a key; a few minutes went by and then a loud noise came from what sounded like outside my door, thinking it was my husband I went to see, nope not him, there was no one, but the sound still remained and now was getting louder. It sounded like someone was beating down a door like the po-lease, it was LOUD and actually made the floor vibrate! Not knowing what was up I went back into my room to wait. Not more than thirty seconds later I got a phone call from Tracy, he was NOT happy, the conversation went something like this:

Tracy: What the...Seriously just open the door!

Me: What?!?!?

then it instantly all clicked..... he was on the wrong floor!

Me: Well honey, sweetheart, I'm actually standing at our open door; where are you? I hope you are not knocking on the door to 1016 because we are in 1116, and I've been listening to you beat down that door for the past ten min now. Please proceed up one flight of stairs and I'll be waiting in the hallway.

We had a great time and I wish Adam and Malia the best!

Yeah, I made it.

This....plus
this....plus my mad skills=
awesome new bench entry way seating

Projects in Progress

So I have had the last few days off of work and have been planning on updating my entry way to be a little more organized. I had the greatest idea to keep all the essentials organized and pretty with a shelving unit from IKEA. I LOVE IKEA and the container store primarily because these stores like to keep things contained and specialize in living in small well organized spaces; organization makes me happy!
Here's the lovely outcome complete with some of my pottery.


Anyone who has ever read the book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" might understand that when you get started on one project you might get the urge to get involved with a few more in the process. So while updating the entry way I also decided to rip out the carpet to get to the hardwood floors. I knew going into this that this would not be just a one day project so little by little is the plan. I ripped out the carpet to find semi useable hardwood underneath and although I was hoping it would be in better shape it is not too bad, a little re-finishing and it will be as good as new. So little by little I will be ripping out sections of the carpet in manageable chunks that I will be able to carry so we can finally get rid of the horrible carpet! Minor detail..... I forgot to tell my husband the plan... so his reaction was a LOT better than I had expected when he walked in the front door to find a big chunk of carpet missing and the house a wreck. Tracy and I have been together for over seven years now and he knows that if I talk about a project long enough not to be too surprised to come home and find me in the thick of said project. He basically rolled his eyes did the whole heavy breathing flaring of the nostrils thing, kissed me and actually said nothing about the mess I had made. Nice he's learning! He only asked that today I not continue tearing up the house and that I actually do a little disaster management ....ok ok no more for today but there's always tomorrow.
Pictures of the hardwood in desperate need of re-finishing.

Sugar + The Garden = Destruction

The Garden

Sugar

The Garden + Sugar =

BEES Baseball

Well since we both have new bikes we can now ride to the baseball field to see the Salt Lake City Bees play.....Beer, junk food and baseball, + the added bonus of not having to deal with parking... what more could you ask for.

Time to Finish!

Well as many of you know I'm STILL in the process of going to school. I have been attending the University of Utah for what feels like forever; it feels like school is a never ending process and I can't wait to just be done. I have figured it out.....my plan is to add another major....no no no friends I'm NOT changing majors again but I do want to add one more to the fine arts degree so as not to loose the time and energy I have already put in. I know you are all waiting on the edges of your seats, will it be karate, under water basket weaving...da tada da da daaaaa English. What gave me this idea, well my friend Emily and I figured out that we can be done and graduated with the English program in exactly one year, ONE YEAR!! I can do anything for only one year and in the end I'll have two bachelors degrees. That's the plan and tomorrow I'll be meeting with an English advisor and planning out all the course requirements for the next year, yay! My plan of being a perma student sounded good in theory but somehow I think finishing one degree even if I do start another after I have finished is the new plan. Yay back to school because school is cool. With a campus as pretty as this how could I not want to stay and play forever?!

BIKES!!!!
So my birthday was in March, and I decided that I wanted/needed/pretty much just wanted a bike for my birthday! Not just any bike my friends but a beach cruiser....I know we don't live by the beach but we do live downtown in the good ole SLC and live close enough that we can/will be biking to most events in the downtown area this summer! You know like the Earth day festival at Liberty Park or the Arts, Jazz, Greek or Chinese festivals at Library Square. Liberty Park is two blocks from our house and has been around as long or longer than our home; it's like the central park of Salt Lake City.. sort of. Here are a few pics of the park, the last pic is of the drum circle that meets every Sunday, depending on how many drummers there are you can hear them from our house; can’t you smell the patchouli now?!? .



So yeah it was MY birthday which my husband tells everyone lasts the WHOLE month of March but somehow my husband got a bike too....humm I think this means I can milk the birthday thing out of a new pair of roller blades.....just a thought. It became clear my first day as a proud new bike owner that my husband would not be out done in the bike department... I asked him to ride with me to the grocery store, mainly because I couldn't wait to try out my new set of wheels and my cool new bike basket; but oh no he said he couldn't because that would require a bike for leisure, a bike built for comfort he said.... I was confused for a minute, but you HAVE a bike I said...not like yours was his reply. So let me get this straight..... because your bike is classified as a mountain bike you can not take a casual ride with me?
I came home the next day to find ANOTHER new bike in my living room. I'm not too happy about the whole situation...primarily because it just so happens that MY bike is blue (my favorite color) and his red (just because that was the only other color this particular bike came in) having them sitting side by side I got a twinge of jealousy....GREAT, now my husband has the color of the fighting Utes and I'm stuck with the... dare I say it... BYU BLUE!!!!!!!! To some this might not be a big deal..... but to US, to ME it's HUGE!! I now ride my pretty new bike with the cute little basket in shame...tear
Thanks to My Mom and Dad, Inlaws Mark and Darlene and Grandma & Grandpa Scott for birthday money to buy my new bike, and now new roller blades. I had a very good birthday and feel blessed to have such a great family! PS thanks Meghan and Jason and Carlie for the birthday webcam so I can Skype like all the cool kids!