february, birthdays, and stuff

Our  lives have been pretty exciting this month. That's a change, right?  :)

I've been pretty good about taking pictures this month, so I'll show you in photos!

First off, Trevor and I read the last installment of The Wheel of Time. I can't talk about it yet. It's too overwhelming. Just FYI, it's amazing. And you're missing out if you don't read it.

Valentine's Day happened and we had a fancy shmancy steak dinner at home with salad and a garlic loaf. Oh, and we got a sparkling lemonade from Trader Joe's that was crazy good. I want more :)

This was our 9th Valentine's Day together. So weird. We're at the point where we can't remember all of them. I got us a joint gift of Star Trek cookie cutters, which we haven't tried yet, but I'm super excited to.

Then my birthday happened. I'm 25 :/

My work got a giant cake for me and Bob Marley.

And decorated my office; I'm now a pretty, pretty princess.

On my actual birthday, I had probably the best birthday I've had in years. It fell on a Saturday... hooray! So we got up early, had breakfast at Gandolfo's, and went to the Mummies Exhibit at The Leonardo downtown. The exhibit was interesting, informative, and kind of sad. They don't allow photography inside, but this is a little art project we did while we were exploring the rest of the museum. If you go, be sure to go into the nature section full of paintings and art about the world. There's a video about the birds and the bees that is seriously hilarious. Not really for kids though.

We had lunch at a new place in Sugarhouse called Flatbread Neapolitan Pizzeria. The flatbread was delicious (actually, that's probably an understatement; I think about it all the time... sausage, goat cheese, roasted red pepper...), but the pizza was a bit soggy. Didn't matter though; I love trying new places and eating at slightly upscale places that make me feel special :) I know, kind of shallow. Trevor humored me all day! I couldn't have asked for more than trying new food, learning a little bit, and hanging out with Trevor all day.

We had a relaxing afternoon at home :)

Then we went to Bombay House! OMG. I took a picture of the soup that we had first, but then I was too distracted by how crazy good the food was to take pictures after that. This was the perfect place to go. We tried lamb for the first time, and loved it. And all the spices were great. Nothing was gross--which is rare, from what we've experienced. It turned out that our waiter was an old client of one of my previous employers, and he gave us free soup! I crave this soup all the time now. This was a spinach Saag Shorba, and it was creamy, savory, and spinachy.

We had some great family dinners for a bunch of birthdays throughout the month. I love being with our families. It's nice to me knowing that we have them around and can count on them to be friends with :)

The sun came out! After a month of temperatures in the single digits! The sun is starting to set later now, which is such a relief to me. I hate dark evenings. Plus, it means more photo sessions!

Trevor worked really hard and got us bikes! Both are used, but we're really grateful for them. We've been spending some time getting them ready to ride--new seats, fixing tires, that kind of thing. And this week we've been trying to use them more. We had kind of an ordeal with a stripped nut that almost ruined everything, but we made it through. Can't wait for warmer weather!

I started playing Minecraft with Trevor. Oh no. 

 Hung out with family. Got some cute pictures of my niece. She's crazy. Likes to jump a lot when she knows she's on camera, haha :)

This is supposed to go up before Valentine's Day... but Trevor let me use my camera outside on him with a rain sleeve for like 2 minutes. It was snowing so hard! But it was fun to be out in the elements with it. Plus now I have a picture that reminds me how handsome Trevor is. Lookit his cute beard :)

And FINALLY. We're getting a dog :) It's been a long process of figuring out if it's possible, how we can manage, and what we'll get. But we are doing it! We're meeting with one this weekend to see if we'd like to adopt him. So I'll share more about that later when we know for sure!

smell in fridge, ruined soup, shred, new calling, and church

I haven't posted yet this week, so I thought I'd share what's been going on. Nothing super fantastic. Mostly normal stuff.

• The smell in our freezer/fridge is going away--Oh wait. I don't think I told you about that. Basically, one day there suddenly came a horrible stench from our freezer mostly, and filled our fridge, ruining 90% of its contents. We threw away at least $50 worth of food, if not closer to $100. Basically, anything not sealed tighter than Superman could open tasted like... nasty. When we cleaned everything out there wasn't even anything super old or rotting that had obviously caused the smell. It's a mystery. We spent a week or so with a mostly empty fridge, trying a new remedy each day. Lysol, bleach, baking soda, vinegar, vanilla... just a few. For now, we have a freezer that just smells like off vinegar, and we're sealing all our food, like, triple. 

• Speaking of bad food. I recently had one of the worst food foibles of my life. Remember this delicious butternut squash soup? Yeah, the one that takes an hour to roast the squash? Well, lucky me, I used cream that had gone sour and ruined the whole batch. Needless to say, Wendy's never tasted so blah after that. 

• What else is going on... I started Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. This evening will be day 6. It was incredibly hard the first 2 days, and now it's getting better. But it's still really difficult. 20 minutes of intense workout, at home, where I don't have to drive anywhere, or wear appealing clothing, and I'm allowed to pant and grunt as much as I need to because no one can hear. I make Trevor stay in another room while I exercise--best idea ever. 

• I'm now officially the Relief Society accompanist. Who'd have guessed? ;) I was expecting it, and hoping for it, actually. When I was set apart, it was said that I could use my calling as a means of healing some of the old hurts I have, and using the spirit of music to move forward with my spiritual goals. I totally 100% agree. I always feel like the pianist is the luckiest person in the room. I love playing prelude music, and I feel like I'm getting the long end of the stick by being able to sit and enjoy it. I don't even know if other people listen that much. 

• I bore my testimony in church and completely ruined it. Five seconds after getting up to the mic I became one of those ladies who talks like a mouse and pauses for unknown amounts of time. After that my goal changed from bearing testimony to just saying a few sentences that would actually make sense to the congregation and sitting back down as quickly as possible. I even snorted uncontrollably as I was heading back down. Oh gosh. And I have to show my face there again.
• I'm speaking in church this Sunday. I don't know what came over the bishopric to make them think I'll be any different than last time, but okay. I just need to steer clear of anything that invites the spirit, then I won't cry. Sounds like a terrific plan.
• Lastly, this hasn't happened yet, but I'm looking forward to it a bushelfull. My sister-in-law and my niece are coming for a visit tomorrow! We are going to have loads of fun :)

Video Time!

Last night Trevor had a show at some kid's house, and it went really well. That mostly means the cops didn't come stop everything... The neighborhood was really good about the whole thing. Even the neighbor kids were watching while they jumped on their trampolines :) I took some video, but the sound quality really stinks. In fact, I recommend you turn your volume off completely because if you don't. your ears will explode... But really, it doesn't sound anything like it should. Stupid cell phone videos. Just watch; you can sort of tell what happens when they play.

I also love that it looks like there's a ghost in the picture right before you push play :)

The next is one I found from FOREVER ago. Actually, from April. Apparently this is what we do during conference...

And last but no least, I few of our little buddies Cinderella and Rikki. Rikki is using her wheel in the first one. I think that's almost the most it's ever been used. I have another one of them just hangin' out together, but it's freaking out when I try to load it, so you'll have to keep your pants on while you wait for that one. I'm pretty sure they love eachother, and that makes me feel better about caging them all day.

A few weird things...

Got home from work and Trevor wanted to clean. No, that's not THE weird thing, although it can be counted as irregular. So yeah, we cleaned, and made our apartment nice to be in. We had a hard time finding the source of a very disturbing smell near the garbage can/pantry area, but it seems to be gone today. So 8:15 rolls around and we still haven't eaten dinner. I take a look around the work we've done in the kitchen so far, and open up all my cupboards and freezer, only to decide I don't want to mess up the cleanness so far and I don't want to cook. Hooray for 5 Buck Pizza! Call 'em up, order 2 pizzas, they deliver, right? OKAY! ...waiting for the pizza to arrive is excruciating. But thank goodness for pizza delivery on late, tired nights, right? I don't even mind that 5 Buck Pizza no longer sells 5 dollar pizzas.

...An hour later...I call up 5 Buck and ask what the situation is. Is the driver having a hard time finding the place? All I get in response is an annoyed lady on the phone saying "it's on it's way." Uh, okay? So, you know, 15 minutes later I call back, obviously a little more frustrated and tell them I'm feeling like I don't want to pay for these pizzas. "Well the driver's on his way; I GUESS we can credit you something after he delivers it." ...sigh... How about I just don't give him anything when he gets here? "You want your pizza for FREE?" Well, SOMETHING! Geeze. I'm not giving him my money.

Blah blah blah, she gets her manager to call me and he, very annoyed, says he can be here in 15 more minutes with the pizza, and that he can give me one for free. One? So, he wants me to pay for pizza that has been in some dude's car for an hour and half? I don't think so. I'll take them for free, thanks.

So more arguing, where I seriously can't believe he's yelling at me, and I seriously doubt he's the manager of the store, and I tell him I'll pay for one of the pizzas if they take the 3 dollar delivery charge off. But no. They won't admit that it's their fault and that THEY are the ones who should suffer when they're short on drivers. The least they can tell me is that I should expect it to take a long time.

I am so not arguing with him any more, so after him saying that I would have to pay for everything I hung up. FINE! We'll make pancakes at 10 o'clock!

15 minutes later, he shows up at our door and says, "That'll be $11.15." He's got some nerve. I blankly say, "I'm not paying for that," and he says, "Okay!" and smiles like a big idiot and bounces away.

Yeah, thanks for stealing an hour and a half of my life 5 Buck Pizza, and for ruining my night. And thanks for teaching your store managers about customer service.

Good grief!

I know there were a few other weird things, but I can't remember now that my pizza story's out there.