A Weekend of Sunshine

Marcus and I made a quick trip to Phoenix this past weekend. Brian was giving a talk, formerly known as a farewell, so we flew down for probably 48 hours. These three were probably the most excited to see us:

Charlie. I know he looks calm here, but he loved more people around. Just don't tell my dad he's on the couch in this picture :)

my mom-- it's been a big year for her. her oldest got married, the second is going on a mission, and her baby got his drivers license. wow!

my little ol' guy- Allegro. isn't he cute?! he always loves more attention.

We had a fun and eventful couple days, including going to Nello's for pizza and the dog park with Charlie. There was a lot of family in town to support Brian, which was awesome. We also had some great family games on the Wii!!! Lucky for Marcus and me, Brian is having us babysit the game system for the next two years ;) But that's not where the elder's generosity ended.

My lap top died a couple weeks ago, so Brian decided to give us his... since he obviously won't be needing it for awhile. Marcus spent his free time upgrading it to Windows 7 and deleting Brian's crazy games :) This was before church-- he was on a roll getting it ready for its big move up north.

All ready for church. Trevor tried to convince all the guys to wear bow ties. G-Daddy did, as well as...

Marcus trying to perfect his bow tie-- Trevor had to teach him how to tie it!


my family outside the church building right after Brian was set-apart as a missionary.

the kids... too bad I'm not as tall as everyone else :)

the big man himself, Elder Brian Gardner Page of the Russia Moscow Mission

After church, family went to Mimi & G-Daddy's house for lunch and some hang-out-with-Brian time...

Mimi getting food ready before people came over

The new Russian elder with cousin Jake

Brian, Papa, G-Daddy, and Ada chillin' on the couch

some family out by the pool-- it was a beautiful, sunny day outside. Loved it!

the nerdy twins grabbing some more food-- Brian finding sandwiches, Marcus searching for shrimp

some relatives on the Page side having lunch

and some Gardners (I thought about making a joke using the last picture's caption and this being the other side of the Page... good thing I didn't!)

Uncle Brad and his four week old baby girl, Ada Rae Gardner

The two Gardner granddaughters... we're only 22 years apart ;)

I had to include this picture-- Trevor was so afraid of hurting Ada that it took him two days to build the courage to hold her. Here's proof he made it :)

Our fun weekend in the sunshine quickly came to an end, and Marcus and I were headed back to Utah... at least we missed the storm over the weekend.

Erica's Un-Birthday!

For my birthday (in August), Marcus bought us tickets to go to the So You Think You Can Dance tour, and the big day finally arrived. We had a fun evening, and we definitely started it out right...

We made Funfetti cookies for our primary class in anticipation of a great Sacrament program :) Okay, so that really wasn't part of our evening, but I did make those cookies, and they're amazing! And our primary class did a great job today-- they even sat still for almost the entire hour. almost.

This is how our exciting night actually begun... We went to one of our favorite places to eat!

Just thinking about it makes me want to go back. Maybe next week :)

And this is almost what my meal looked like. (I just found the clip art and had to include it.) Their chicken tortilla soup is my favorite-- if you know the recipe somehow, let me know! Marcus had some gross sea food soup and a yummy sandwich... I don't need that recipe. :)

And then we were off...
An hour later, we were at the E Center, anxiously waiting (for the doors to open because we were so early, which is what happens when Marcus makes the travel plans) for these dancers...

Obviously a few other people were either just as excited or had someone pushing them to get the best parking because the E Center had a huge crowd out front.

Soon we were inside. We had great tickets. Although a very tall lady sat in front of Marcus, I wouldn't complain about our seats at all. Row 20, middle! Seriously. It was like all those amazingly talented dancers were performing for us. So much cooler than watching on tv! There were a couple girls who should've stopped jumping out of their chairs so much, but they figured out that more people can see if everyone is seated by about intermission. :)

The man himself, Nigel Lythgoe, kicked off the evening. I know this is horrible, but I was so relieved when Cat Deeley wasn't there to host it. She drives me crazy. I enjoy listening to Mary Murphy more than her!

And the show begins... The dancers emceed for themselves, and their scripted jokes were a lot of fun. I can't lie, I laughed a lot.

This is my favorite dance of the season. Battlefield performed by Jeanine and Brandon. You can almost see them on the stage in this picture-- sorry, I took all these pictures on my phone, so they aren't the best.

Intermission. They were setting up the mirrors on the floor for a group number.

This was at intermission. The show was longer than we had anticipated, which probably bugged Marcus more than me :) But we had a blast!

But you should've seen him grin ear to ear when this number started! He loved Janette and Brandon in Ruby Blue-- it's the one where they're burglars. He really enjoyed the second half, which made it even more fun for me.

And finally, the big finish, which kind of reminded me of Disneyland. I'm so glad we were able to go! It was a ton of fun-- and obviously Utah was crazy excited for Randi to be one of the dancers since she is from Orem because everyone went crazy when she was on stage.

We were about deaf by the end, but I loved it all. And so did Marcus, just don't tell :)

BOO!

Happy Halloween!

One year ago exactly, Marcus proposed, so to celebrate, we helped out at a multi-ward primary Halloween activity :)

I made this poster for our bean bag toss, and Marcus made bean bags from his mission socks. Yeah, it almost worked out to both of us putting in the same amount of time :)

Luckily, he decided to sit behind the board for the majority of the activity, so he was the one pelted with the socks when the kids couldn't (or didn't want to) aim. You can't really see, but he's dressed up like a bowler. It was one of the shirts I tried to trash when we got married, but I lost... obviously it was useful!

And I was a witch again...

One of the kids made all three bean bags in the holes-- he was celebrating

Ellie (from our primary class-- she's the one who knows EVERYTHING about the Titanic)

J.J. (also in our primary class)

We bought some pizza on the way home, and it was delicious! We ate it as we watched The Nightmare Before Christmas. (Fun fact: I bought that movie for Marcus last Halloween before I knew he was going to propose. He got a movie- I got a diamond :) Fair.) It is one of Marcus' favorite movies, and it allowed me to choose the movie later...

Then, it was time for our fun Halloween treat!

CARAMEL APPLES!

Marcus l-o-v-e-d peeling the wrappers off the candy (yep, we made the caramel the easy way)

Chillin'

Our fun toppings

Preparing more for the apples

Our masterpieces... they look a little Picasso-esque

APPLES :)

Marcus really enjoyed his

I think more ended up on my face than in my stomach

Good thing we stayed home because FOUR kids wouldn't have gotten candy from us. But I am glad we were prepared. It would've been embarrassing to have needed to hide from the doorbell. After our movie ended, Footloose was on tv. I was hoping for Hocus Pocus, but lucky Marcus, he was able to enjoy Kevin Bacon's dancin'. Probably ten minutes into the movie, Marcus said, "That looks like Utah!" Love it!

We had a great Halloween. Low key, not too scary... Definitely my style :)

BYU Homecoming

Despite a depressing football game, Marcus and I really enjoyed BYU's Homecoming. Jon and Celeste invited us to go with them (and Nate and Briana Weir) to the activity for married/engaged couples. You know you're at BYU when there's a specific activity for that category :) We had a blast!

First there was a dinner catered by Tucanos. It's a Brazilian grill, so there was definitely enough meat to go around, plus rolls, salad, and potatoes. Yum!

Marcus was so excited when he saw the buffet lines-- we ate more than we probably should have :)

Then Humor U (BYU's stand-up group) did a show. They're hilarious! I think we may have to go one of their shows. Of course there were lots of jokes about being married and going to BYU, but we especially enjoyed the ones about little kids wetting the bed... I guess you had to be there.

The Millers

This guy played the recorder with his nose, and then two of them at the same time with his nose, and then two at the same time harmonizing with each other! What a talent ;)

The Strouds were also at the dinner, so naturally we have a Bryan and Marcus picture.

Nate and Briana

Jon and Celeste

me and Marcus

Celeste also has some pictures, so maybe some more will be added soon. My computer died this past week, so it had been difficult trying to post anything. But I'll post more this coming week... cross your fingers.

Witches Night Out

This past weekend, I went with this crazy girl to Witches Night Out at Gardner Village...

Celeste loves Halloween, and her enthusiasm convinced me to go and dress up (as much as I could).

I was a little hesitant to go because Marcus was home sick, but he assured me that Celeste's husband, Jon, would be a great babysitter -- they went to Wendy's and watched a movie. :) So Celeste helped me create a witch outfit, later accompanied by a big, pointy hat.

We walked around Gardner Village with Celeste's mother-in-law and sister-in-law. We had a blast looking around the different shops (as well as people watching).

It started getting cold, so soup in a bread bowl was a popular meal.

There were so many people there-- I had no idea it was such a big event! You can't really tell in these pictures, but there were people everywhere... usually girls dressed like witches.

I really did enjoy "Witch Watching" -- and it was great theorizing why some guys were there too...

The whole place was decorated for Halloween. I wish these pictures could've captured the intensity :)

This was my favorite picture from the night-- If you can't see it, the sign reads, "Witchy Poo."