make glemonade

Here are the pics of our house when we had dirt, then the day the sod was laid, then a few weeks later. We added the concrete in the back and extended the driveway as well, and the curbing to create a bed lining the sidewalk and front of the house. So give me tips, what shrubs should I put in front of the house, and what ones to line the center walkway? What trees should we put in the backyard? I'm debating some type of small evergreen for the front, 2-4 of them. Whaddya think, kids?

This winter in Utah was mild, to put it mildly. It snowed, what, three times? I missed the snow. We did have a White Christmas, which was wonderful. Eric and I always say that by the time winter is actually here (i.e. January), we are ready for spring, but I guess it's a "be careful what you wish for" situation, because I sure did miss the snow. I didn't miss it being freezing, as it has been (brutally so) for the last couple winters before this. One thing that I have decided to just enjoy is the warmth and the lengthy spring. I usually have terrible allergies, but this year they haven't been bad. Not sure why, but not gonna complain! So I've been able to enjoy the blossoming trees and bipolar weather much more than I usually do this time of year. The pink and white blossoms in this area are so beautiful. We are getting ready to put in our yard! We (and by we I mean our buddy Juan and his crew) poured concrete this weekend, extending our driveway to the ba...

This is where we went this year:  -DENVER- Broncos playoff game against the Chargers.* I had two favorite things about this trip, one was the Broncos played an awesome game and it was the first time I've seen them live, the second was the hat that I bought. It's adorbs.  The game was F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G. Like one of the coldest times in my life. But the company and entertainment were top notch.  -LAS VEGAS- Eric went to Vegas in March with his dad. Neither of us can remember why I didn't go. I guess probably work. He went for the WCC tournament, which we do go to (almost for me) every year. We've done Vegas so many times, it's kind of old hat, if it's an old hat that you really like and will never give up on even when it's out of style.  -MOAB, UT- Eric went to Moab, which is actually on my short list of places I need to go, but he went with the Boy Scouts and I was not invited! They rafted, camped, did all that good stuff. I'm glad he w...

I'm playing catch up. We are in DIA right now, waiting to fly back to SLC from our Thanksgiving holiday, and I'm thinking about the trip. I was talking with A and K and mentioned that I felt like we didn't really travel this year, Eric and I. But we did, and I haven't documented it. So lest I forget, let's talk about our trip to Mt. Rushmore. I had Mt. Rushmore on my bucket list, who knows why. There was just some unexplainable allure to it for me. We decided to road trip up over the Fourth of July. They actually stopped doing fireworks there a few years back, due to some bug infestation in the forest that leaves the trees more flammable. But I didn't mind at all. We left on Thursday, the 3rd, after work, and drove to Casper, WY. We got to Evanston quick and picked some fireworks, then didn't stop until we got to Martin's Cove, which is an LDS Pioneer landmark. The handcart companies that left really late in the season (Willy and Martin Companies) hi...

It's something I've just laughed off or used as my "interesting thing about me" in all the first days' getting-to-know-yous. "One thing people may not know about me is that I can't swim"... "I'm not a swimmer, I'm a drowner"... One of my New Year's Resolutions this year was to learn to swim. So probably around February, I looked up adult swim classes at the Provo Rec Center, and found one. Wasn't that hard.  I convinced, also somewhat easily, my partner in crime, Lisa, to do this with me. She also is(was) a drowner. It's one of those things you put off forever and then you finally google it and you're embarrassed because it's so easy to find a solution. Well... okay... it wasn't that easy, nothing is ever that easy with a rec center (we were late for registration, but the class hadn't started). Without elaborating on the details of my phone calls to the Provo Rec, we made it on the list within 24 ho...

I posted this picture when we went to the game, but didn't tell you about the trip. It's November now, so I'm remembering back, but what a fun time! Hard to think back now to the amazing game and team we had at this game!  It was the weekend after Labor Day, so we'd just traveled to Colorado for my family's Powderhorn vacation. It was a quick turnaround but we didn't care. We got to Austin on Thursday and we ate at this really great restaurant... can't remember the name now. But it was so good we ate there twice. We were there the perfect time of year to go see the amazing bats at the Congress Ave Bridge. We drove downtown, parked about two blocks away and walked over to the bridge, where there are tons of people but still plenty of room to see. We waited about five minutes and they started flying. It really is a strangely beautiful thing to see. They just pour out from under the bridge, black smoke streams that spin along for miles.  The next day w...

The first time we did in vitro, we got 6 good embryos. We used 2, with my age and reproductive health they didn't even want us to do 2, saying it was fairly risky that we would get multiples. We, of course, as you know, didn't get pregnant. This was back in June/July 2012. I got really depressed (I think I wrote all this before but I'm summing up just in case you are behind). I couldn't even think about trying again for a really long time, but we did have 4 embryos frozen with our doctors, waiting for us. We decided when we did it for the second time we would just keep it to ourselves. We didn't tell anyone, and it was liberating in a lot of ways. It had been so devastating before, I just couldn't bear to talk with anyone about it again. It was important for us, Eric and I, this time, to just keep it between us. I think that was something we could control in the whole thing, and it suited us this time. So we started in November of 2013, about a year and a ha...