Heads or Tails

When we moved to Washington Brandon wanted to get Direct TV for the sole purpose of watching BYU football. I didn't know this but I guess you need to have a south facing apartment to position the satellite dish. We have a north facing apartment. Needless to say Brandon was a little sad that we only got to listen to the games off the internet.

But last Saturday was the big game and we had to take drastic measures to help support our alma mater. Our friend Nate called every sports bar in Seattle to see who could show the game and finally found it... Heads or Tails. There were about 8 or 9 of us Cougar fans in this cold and drafty one room bar. We wish the team would have played better. What was up with Max Hall throwing all those interceptions? Anyways, all the bar goers were very friendly and helped cheer for BYU. One of the regulars even jumped off his stool to come over and say, "I thought Mormons don't drink." We assured him it was only soda and that we weren't drinking. Maybe next year the Cougs will play a little better. Here are some pictures.

CoNgRaTuLaTiOnS!!!

Here's a shout out to my super smart husband who just passed his fourth and final CPA exam! Congratulations Brandon...no more tests ever!

Apples, Ducks, Mist, and 007...

...who knew that was what Seattle has to offer? My parents came to visit last weekend and that pretty much highlights what we did while they were here. Brandon had been in Spokane all week on business so I picked all of them up at the airport Friday night. We went to dinner at Claim Jumper and then showed them around Redmond and our new apartment. Saturday morning we headed downtown to walk Pike's Market. There we watched the famous fish throwers and perused all the booths. We bought Honey Crisp Apples which were delicious and then went to lunch at Pike's Market Grill. This is one of my favorite little places to eat at Pike's.

We couldn't have asked for better weather for their visit. Everyone kept saying how it is never this nice in November. With the sunny skies we decided to go on a Duck Tour. I've seen these Duck Boats cruising around the city but have never been on one. The tour starts by driving around to historical sites downtown while giving a little history and ends up as a cruise around Lake Union. Somehow, the bus becomes a boat. I've always wondered how that works. I didn't really figure it out but I know it does...thankfully. It's a weird feeling being in a large bus driving straight into a lake. We then walked around the Seattle Center and looked at the Space Needle. That night we relaxed at home with a home cooked meal and a show Casino Royale to prepare us for the new James Bond movie that came out this weekend.

Sunday morning we headed up to Snoqualmie Falls. Again it was a beautiful day but the Observation Deck at the Falls was completely covered with a cloud of mist. You couldn't see the Falls unless you went up by Salish Lodge which only lets you see the top of the Falls. Still it was beautiful; I just wish my parents could have seen the whole thing. After church we took my parents to the airport. It was a short weekend but I was so happy they would come and see where we lived. Thanks Mom and Dad for coming. We hope you had a good time.

Birthday Boy

Ten things you may not know about this Birthday Boy1. He is turning 26 today. That’s right…he is closer to 30 than 20 and it is a BIG deal!
2. He’s the smartest man in the world. Whenever we play a trivia game he always pulls random facts out of nowhere. Honestly I don’t know how he remembers everything he has ever heard or read. And he has passed all of his CPA tests so far (we are still waiting for the results of the last one but I know he passed)!
3. He loves the Discovery Channel and Man vs Wild. I think him and his dad could sit in front of the TV with a Dr. Pepper and the season of Planet Earth and be perfectly content with life.
4. He has an eye for home décor. When we moved to Redmond with nothing but a couple of old camp chairs I was surprised at the furniture and decorations he picked out. He’s even talking about finding drapes for our windows…I haven’t even thought of that.
5. Even though he claims to hate dancing he really loves it. And he loves to do it in public. When we are walking around a department store Brandon will spontaneously start to do his dance. I think he thinks it embarrasses me but I absolutely love it. He makes me laugh so hard.
6. He is an accountant at heart. When we were registering for our wedding Brandon made a spreadsheet of everything we needed to register for. We printed out the sheet and checked off the items as we scanned them into our registry. Talk about detail oriented!!
7. He went through a phase where he grew out his hair. And no this wasn’t when he was a teenager; it was last year when I met him. He had just got home from an internship at Ernst and Young in Seattle where he had let his hair grow for 3 or 4 months without cutting it. Sometimes he talks about growing it back…we’ll see.
8. Kids adore him. I think every toddler at church is in love with him. They always stare at him, make faces with him, and laugh whenever he raises his eyebrows or gives them a funny look. There was this one little red head girl in our Provo ward that particularly took a liking to Brandon…we still talk about her today.
9. He is a perfect gentleman. He always opens the door for me every time we get in the car.
10. He loves music. As a kid Brandon played the trumpet in his junior high marching band. Now he just serenades me with his guitar and ukulele.

These are just TEN of the HUNDREDS of reasons I love this Birthday Boy.

I love you Brandon!!! Happy Birthday!

Obsession

Brandon and I have a new obsession. We are addicted to the game Twirl on Facebook. We play this game almost every day together. The game is simple. They give you six letters and you need to create three, four, five, and six letter words out of those letters. To qualify for the next round you must get the six letter word before the two minute timer runs out. It doesn't sound like much but it is so addicting! If you want to give Twirl a whirl you can go to either mine or Brandon's facebook page. If you look at our mini feed you will see that we probably played Twirl today. Just click on the link and have fun. But watch out...it's addicting!

General Conference

I've been meaning to make this post for over a week now. This was my first General Conference away from Utah and it was a little different than most. In my family, General Conference is like another holiday...almost as big as Christmas or Thanksgiving. Our tradition is to have a huge breakfast of crepes, breakfast casserole, fruit, and juice....ALL YOU CAN EAT (and believe me we all eat a little too much)!! We eat as we watch Music and the Spoken Word and then watch conference all together as a family. This year Brandon and I were in Seattle but of course we tried to keep the traditional alive. I made crepes and we watched Conference with just the two of us. Thankfully we were able to see it from home and did not have to go to a Stake Center. It wasn't the same without everyone there but I absolutely loved Conference. I was able to listen to the talks instead of reading them later (kids can be very distracting on conference day.) My favorite talk was Elder Wirthlin's--his are always my favorite. I love hearing all of the apostles and our prophet speak. They always seem to know exactly what I need to hear or think about. Here is a link to the conference talks if you missed any of it.

Also a side note from my previous post about the electric can open. I fixed it...well sort of. It wasn't really broken. The day after I posted I tried to use the toaster and it wasn't working either. The electric can opener and toaster are plugged into the same outlet. I just pushed the reset button and voila they both worked. Silly me!!!

A good thing to have...just in case

Tuesday night I was making dinner for Brandon. I was even testing out a new recipe for spaghetti. In this recipe there are a lot of canned goods--stewed tomatoes, tomatoe sauce, etc. We got an awesome electric can opener for our wedding in June and have been using it without any problems ever since. I was using the can opener and successfully opened everything I needed except for one important ingredient. Before I could open the 2 cans of tomate sauce our electric can opener broke. I don't know what happened. I thought I was using the can opener correctly but apparently not because when I placed the can under the cutter nothing happened. At first I thought I didn't have it in the right place because you know how picky they are and how the can has to be exactly in the right spot to work. But nothing happened, it wouldn't even make a sound like it was trying to open it. Brandon, my own personal in house fix it guy, even tried to get it operational but couldn't. Here's where the important lesson comes in: Always have a manual can opener as a backup just in case your electric one brakes. I know, I know! We really should have one. What would we do if there was an emergency and had to live off our 'food storage.' But we just haven't gotten around to buying one yet. So Brandon carefully stabbed the cans with a pocket knife and I spent some time trying to shake out all the contents from a tiny puncture site. The spaghetti turned out great and it is so delicious. (Thanks Lindsey) But this little incident just goes to show you that everyone needs a manual can opener hidden somewhere in their kitchen drawers...just in case.