Christmas is coming

We're gearing up for Christmas around here.

I am thrilled about it this year and more prepared than I've ever been

since I'm not trying to finish up finals and projects.

We decorated our cute tree right after Thanksgiving and I love it!

Maybe I'll keep it up all year round and just put Easter and 4th of July ornaments on it and such.

Wouldn't that be a great idea!

In other news, we finally finished our laundry closet,

so we can now wash clothes at our very own house!

Exciting stuff.

Tyler put a lot of hard work into it and it turned out great.

I haven't taken pictures of the final project,

but this actually shows the progress much better

2 New Additions

Within a matter of a month we've sold both our cars and replaced them. We had plans to sell our Jeep, but we weren't planning on our Hyundai dying so soon. Just 4 days after we sold our Jeep (and before finding a replacement for the Jeep), the transmission went out on our Hyundai. Funny story involved there...

I came home for lunch one day and as I was backing out of the drive way and the car just wouldn't go in reverse anymore. I revved the engine but to no avail, I could not back out. Luckily it shifted into first gear so I pulled forward into the drive way and gave up on it. So there I am stuck with no way to get back to work. I couldn't call Tyler to pick me up, because he didn't have a car (we sold the Jeep) so what could he have done, given me a ride on his bike? I tried to take my bike, but as Murphy's law would have it the tires were flat. So what was I left with? My ever-trusty scooter, that's right, my Razor scooter. It was only a few blocks but I just felt like a 6 year old gliding through the parking lot on a scooter! We all had a good laugh about it though.

Needless to say, after that little experience we felt that it was time to get a new car pronto! So we borrowed my sister's car (thanks again) to go look at a few cars in Bountiful and Salt Lake and came home with this Mazda 6! I really love it and especially love that it's reliable and should be a good car for us for a long time.


Well, Tyler did a little trouble shooting and determined that the transmission was shot. Since we bought the Hyundai for $1,000 we couldn't justify spending twice that to get it running again, so we decided it was time to move on. Tyler was okay with riding his bike to school for a little while, until it starting getting cold and rainy. We've been wanting a truck for as long as we've been married. Okay, we had my 1985 Ford F-150, but really, we've been wanting a real truck, like one that runs. So we did some research and decided on a Chevy. Tyler absolutely love it and it should be another good car for us too. I'll get better pictures later, but here it is: It's blue, Aggie blue, which I love. Our "A" plate will look pretty good on here.


It definitely wasn't in our plans to buy two cars in a month, but I guess that's how life plays out... not the way you plan. But we hope we're set with some reliable cars for now and we love them both.

New Do

So here I am Friday morning. Yes, I look sleepy, but ignore that. Focus on my how long my hair is. I had Tyler snap these pictures of me before leaving for work because....
I came home looking like this!

I've been wanting to chop my hair off for several months and I finally just did it thanks to some prodding from my co-workers. They also convinced me to go darker, but I'm absolutely loving it!

Looking Back

I know that summer has long come and gone, but we had such a good one that I do want to mention a few things that happened. We got to see a lot of family, which was more than great. We got together with my mom's entire side together over July 24th weekend. My awesome grandma rented out the Bountiful Bubble for us one night and then we spent the next day at Snowbird doing all sorts of activities and then the next day hanging out at my grandparent.
Later on in September we had a wonderful visit from my cousins in Sweden. Filippa and Bodile (pictured below on either side of my mom) stayed for two weeks and we sure filled their time with "cultural" events. We took them repelling and to a demolition derby among other things. I was curious to see how they would like it but the verdict came in very positive for both events.
We sure enjoyed repelling. Tyler was an animal out there and even tried going Australia style (face-first). I did it a few weeks before he did and I tell you what, it's no easy feat. We sure got a kick out of watching him give it a whirl:

Here's the repelling gang:
In other news, we celebrated our 2 year anniversary in August by having a blast at Lagoon then staying at the Little America. I highly recommend their breakfast-in-bed, it was quite the feast!
Life continues to keep us busy. Hopefully more updates to come soon.

As of Late

When it rains it pours right. I was just getting to the point where I said to myself yesterday, "Things are going pretty smooth right now, and actually kind of boring. It's unusual, but I'll take it!"

Then, there was today. I found out that I really will have to go to jury duty tomorrow. I returned their surveys and stuff thinking the whole time that they'd cancel the case. They do 2 of 3 times everyone told me. But not my time. Nope, I have to go to jury duty tomorrow and I'm NOT thrilled about it.

Today also happened to be the day that we sold our Jeep. We're happy to sell it so we can upgrade a bit, but I'm so sad because it's been the first car I've absolutely fallen in love with. There's just something about owning a Jeep. Buy one and you'll see. Tyler joked that it was probably good we sold it because he was starting to get jealous, thinking I loved it more than I loved him. Not true. I do have to say though that even my iPod pitched in to make my last day with the Jeep a great one, it played only the best song one after another.

On top of this and a million pieces of mail to respond to, work details to smooth out, and now car shopping, we are right back into the busy swing of things.

I still have a cute nephew

Natalie asked me to take 9-month pictures of Dax and even though I'm not a pro photographer, boy, who needs to be when your nephew is this cute! The poor kid was pretty grumpy so even though he wasn't much of a smiler, they still turned out pretty cute.

I love a boy named Tyler

I love a boy named Tyler. I was smitten right from the start. When my brother introduced us at church that one day in May, I couldn't believe I was talking to a boy who was just that cute. He was too tall, too handsome, and too charming for me. But for some reason he found interest in me.

As we started dating I couldn't believe he just kept getting better. I kept thinking he would just stop calling me one day or just lose interest. He was just too cute for me, there was no way it was going to work. I kept falling for him, and luckily he kept falling for me.

We had the summer of a life time that year we met. Everyday was either filled with fun dates, or just hanging out doing a puzzle together or talking after he got off work when he couldn't be together.

Then Fall came and I came back to Logan to go back to school. His dad wondered what he would do and how we would make it work being so far apart. I didn't know for sure, but I did know that if we liked each other enough it would work out. And luckily it sure did.

We got married 14 months after we met. I look back on us when we were dating and it seems so different now. We were each such different people, and we were different together than we are now.

The great thing is that we're different in a better way. Interesting things have brought us together in the 2 years we've been married. We didn't know that we'd end up in Logan, or that we'd get to travel the world together, or that some of our travels might end in complete disaster which would actually make our marriage stronger. We didn't know what was in store for us then, and we don't know what's ahead for us now.

The thing I do know is that I love a boy named Tyler. He made a good decision to pursue me three years ago. And I made a good decision to say yes. The live we've created together is better than I imagined it would have been and I'm so happy to share our 2 years together. Happy 2 year anniversary Tyler. Love you!

Messy House, Happy House

I really can't decide what kind of blogger I am. Which I guess means I'm just a pretty bad blogger. I can't decide if I'm one to post random thoughts and short comments. Or if I'm one who blogs only when significant events happen. Of if I'm one to delve into my deep thoughts and pour them out. More often than not I think about blogging and then just toss the idea out because I can't decide what approach I'd like to take. Hmmm, more thoughts on that later....if I decide to write about it.

**********************************************************************************************

For now, I'll share that with Tyler being gone so much lately, I've noticed that our house has been generally a little cleaner. I'm not saying that he is the one who normally makes it messy. In fact, I'd say the opposite, it's me that makes it messy. He's really good about cleaning up his stuff. It's me that comes home and doesn't take the time to put away my shoes or hang up jacket. I'm the one who thinks "I'll get around to washing those dishes when I have nothing better to do".

But who am I kidding! Of course there's always something better to do than dishes! So usually don't end up "getting around to it" cuz I find so many more important things to do. I would much rather spend my time at home just being with Tyler. So more often than not my socks are still lying on the floor and the dishes are still in the sink when we crawl into bed. Lucky for me I scored an awesome husband who will take care of the dishes the next day. So hey, I'll spend time with him today and let him do the dishes tomorrow. Maybe a messy house is a happy house.

The past 8 days

Well the past week has been a little quite so I've tried to fill my time with the people I love and enough things to keep me busy.

So what have I been up to?

• bookshelf painting
• birthday celebrating
• friend sleepover-ing
• decorating
• Photoshop-ing
• IKEA shopping
• repelling
• softball playing (injuries included)
• nephew loving
• Bachelorette finale watching
• junk food eating
• Anniversary anticipating

I've also discovered a new-found love for the HGTV channel. Can't stop watching it!

Dinner of Champions

Today Tyler told me that Taco Bell is the breakfast of champions. I always thought it was Wheaties. Guess I've been mis-informed to this point. Hmmm... So if Taco Bell is the Breakfast of Champions, is there a lunch of champions? Tyler knew this one too...it's chocolate chip cookies. With milk. No, no milk. Just chocolate chip cookies. But it's actually the "brunch of America". And the lunch of champions is "definitely Texas Roadhouse". I threw in that the dinner of champions might be Chili's.

We were hungry (to the point of delirium as you can tell). And I didn't want to cook. So tonight we ate the dinner of champions.

Happy Birthday Tyler!

Let me begin by letting you that Tyler can be very pursuasive at times. But only in a good way of course. He began his prep-work early, probably right after Christmas, putting plugs in here and there about a PlayStation3. "Do we really need one?" Of course, his answer was yes! Well, before we knew it I was asking him what color paddles he wanted and which games would be the funnest. He convinced me.

It took further pursuasion to convince me that he needed it as early as possible so he could play during the summer. See, in my family, if you you're going to get something for your birthday, you get it on the day of your birth. In Tyler's family they are more liberal with when they actually get their gifts.

Well, I broke and when his PlayStation finally came in the mail it happened to be a day we had planned a bon fire so we kinda made it his birthday celebration.

He didn't know at first...

Until I pulled out two wrapped boxes.

This face says it all.

So since we celebrate Tyler's birthday 2 weeks early, today was a little more low-key. Dinner and a movie and a quiet night at home.

It's been great to celebrate his birthday over the past few weeks and see how truly grateful he is for EVERYTHING. It makes me very grateful for him and all he does for me. He is always so happy and patient and encourages me to be a better person.

Love you, Babe!

Make it Happen

In an effort to change my most recent post to something that doesn't sound to demeaning to my workplace (since I actually really like my job), I'm going to post a quick snippet about our weekend. I hope to post pictures shortly...although, I think I've said that many times and have yet to come through with that.

Let me explain something first. Back in about February or so Tyler and I were featured in our ward newsletter in the "Getting to Know You" section. I'm sure most people (those that actually read it) thought we were just another nice couple, but one couple decided that we had enough in common that we should see if we'd click. Two days later we had game night and the rest is history.

Doesn't that sounds like the beginning of a love story! Haha. Well it's the beginning of my love-for-life story.

On that fateful game night, the couple briefly mentioned that they wanted to go to Europe this summer. We of course had the same aspiration so they jokingly said "oh, you should come with us". Three months later we were on a plane to London.

Within the 5 months we've known the Sampsons we have done a lot of things that we would never have done on our own. Sampled numerous foreign cuisine places starting with the White Owl, then Indian Oven, Factory pizza, Happy Sushi, Beehive Grill $.15 wings, and a billion places in Europe. Boy, have they cultured me! And I'm proud to say I liked all of them (except the sushi). We've gone to Europe (again, hope to blog more about that soon) which has opened my eyes to an entirely new beautiful world. And we DO stuff. Ya know how you usually say "Oh yeah, we should hang out sometime." Well, with these guys, we take action and we DO stuff.

Last week we had a last minute bon-fire. This week included fondue night and a camping trip to Bear Lake. We've had numerous movies nights - many of which were a complete flop but we're still friends nevertheless - and all this has changed my attitude towards life.

Live it now. If you want to go fishing tomorrow morning, make it happen. Pack a picnic and make an event out of it. Who says that just cuz you're married you have to stay home every night and go to bed at 10? Live today cuz it makes today awesome and challenges you to make tomorrow even better.

Safety Training

Did you know that June is National Safety Month. Pretty exciting stuff. Today at work we celebrated by having Safety Training. The whole time our HR guy was showing us hand exercises I couldn't help but thing about how much it reminded me of the safety training episode from The Office. Remember the episode where Michael tries to make the office staffs' work sound really life-threatening when in reality there are production people who have serious safety things to worry about, like the deadly bailer.

I have to admit that while I'm sure I could have benefited from the wrist-rolling and finger bending exercises, I got more caught up in the thought that the company I work for is kind of like Dunder Mifflin. They sell paper, and now printers. We print things on huge printers. Dunder Mifflin has an office staff and production staff. So do we. And most importantly, Dunder Mifflin and RR Donnelley both share a deep-routed respect for safety. It's important stuff.

Big Fish

Tyler went fishing today (yes, he's feeling much better). We went fishing on Memorial Day but had no luck. He and Ben went a little earlier today and had a few more tricks up their sleeves.

Here's the little philly he caught, or black crappie to be exact.

So he brought the little guy home and we ate him. Poor little guy, never stood a chance did he! I still can't get over how cool it is that he went out and killed our dinner and brought it home to eat. It's so primative, like..."Bye honey, I'm going out to kill some dinner." Tyler's response was..."you've never fished before have you?" No, I have not.

Something so small.

Well we have a lot of catch-up blogging to do, but at the moment I still need to get the rest of our pictures so our Europe trip will have to wait.

In the mean time, Tyler just couldn't deal with things being dull around here, so he decided to get appendicitis. As we were going to bed last night he complained that his stomach hurt. I gave him some Tums and told him he'd feel better in 10 minutes. I was wrong. He was up all night moaning and trying to clear his stomach in any way possible. By 6 a.m. he threw in the towel and let me take him to the hospital. We got checked in, they gave him some pain killers (which were greatly needed at that point), and ran a CT scan.

Sure enough all the signs pointed to his appendix so they booked him for the surgery room. He went into surgery around 11:30 and was out in an hour. Tyler had a great doctor, Dr. Weiss, who took great care of him. During surgery he found that Tyler's appendix was very close to bursting, so it was good we came in when we did.

He is out of surgery now and his pain has gone from an 8 or 9 to a 1 or 2. It's crazy to think that a useless little body part caused him so much pain. We're both in good spirits and surprised how much better this hospital experience has been than our December experience when he broke his ankle. We appreciate all the texts, prayers, blessings and meals we've already received. Thanks everyone.

We Got Our Keys!

We got the keys to our house on Saturday! I picked them up from our realtor around 11 thirty and was so tempted to go in and check out our house, but I waited for Tyler to get off work until going in. And I'm so glad I did. Buying your first house is a big deal. We are so happy to be in this stage of life and we love the house we bought.

Here's the first picture of us in our new house.

We were most excited to get the keys so that we could start painting and hopefully have it all done by the time we move in next week. We picked up some paint and called over our bestest friends in the whole wide world (they'd have to be to want to help us paint) and set out for a fun night.

By the way, don't be scared by the darker yellow I'm painting, we're going to tone it down a lot.

Natalie painted our names on the bedroom wall. So cute!
Which of course led to cute pictures and a paint fight.

What's painting without a paint fight. You can't call a house a home without a proper paint fight.
The paint is turning out really good. We have another coat to do in both rooms but it's looking pretty good so far. We're so excited to own our own home. When we were going through the whole process of making an offer, getting all the paperwork in for the loan and getting remodeling quotes together we kinda got caught up in the tedious and overwhelming details. But this weekend really gave us the chance to realize how important this step is to us. I mean, when you're 10 and someone asks you want you want to accomplish in your life, you say, "I wanna get married, and buy a house, and have kids, and live happily ever after". Well, we have now completed steps 1 and 2. Tyler and I are so happy with where we are in life right now and so happy to share our new home with all our friends. So come visit anytime!

Closing Early

I checked in with our realtor and lender on Monday to make sure everything was on track to close the following Monday (like the 19th). But they came back with the good news that we could close EARLY! So tomorrow, we will sign our little hearts out and get handed the keys to our first house! Oh boy, are we excited!

Happy Easters

We enjoyed Easter weekend very much.

We took a trip down to Bountiful and the Easter Bunny

still knew where to find us. He brought us this:

The day was filled with cute nephews and Easter egg hunts.

It's hard to get good pictures of these boys when they're always moving.

Easter egg hunts are not just for the little kids in our family.

No, we insist that we're included in the hunt too.

We may all be in our early/mid/late twenties,

but can you really ever get too old for an Easter Egg hunt?

I think not.

This was the catch of the day, I think Connor ended up getting this toughy.

Daxton was only slightly impressed with his dinosaur Easter eggs.

I like Today.

Tonight Tyler and I pretended like it was the weekend.

We went to dinner, at Hamilton's. Very tasty. Even tastier since it was free.

Then we went to movie. Sherlock Holmes is fabulous! Witty, funny, intriguing, and delightful.

Throughout the course of the night we drove around town in awe of the beautiful snow frosted trees. We drove past our soon-to-be-house and saw how cute it looks with snow atop the roof and the little garden lights illuminating the frosty ground.

Doesn't snow do a magical thing. It makes the world all quiet and peaceful and you feel like you're living in a world sprinkled with fairy dust. It reminds you to slow down and stick your tongue out to catch some snowflakes and just take it all in.

Those are my thoughts on a wonderful Wednesday.

Mmmm!

Tonight we made smoothies...

They were wonderful.

Some Exciting News

So we have some pretty big news we'd like to share!

We are buying a house.

Infact, we are buying this cute house:
:

We made an offer on it on Friday, only to find out that another couple had made an offer a few hours earlier. So we were in a bidding war over the weekend but we came out on top. We found out this afternoon that the sellers accepted our offer. We were thrilled about it!

So in about a month we will live here and be very proud home owners!!

Happy Crafting

Last night at I made coasters and hot plates with the ward.

Here's my hot plate. It's about 5"x7". The C stands for Coy :)

Here are my coasters! They match our living room since that's where we'll use them.

I painted the tiles black on the edges then just modge-podged paper.

I'll finish them off with cork board or foam on the bottom.

So cute :)

I made a whole bunch of these for Christmas for my family.

They are probably the best craft cuz they're so cute and you can finish them in just a few hours.

The end.

try and try again

So I had very good intentions to blog today. We had a great weekend and I wanted to share my dad's accomplishment. But that will have to wait. I tried to blog, I really did. I thought it would be nice to be finally put Photoshop on Tyler's new laptop so I could have Photoshop and internet all on one computer. Aparently that's too much to ask for. I started my quest at 3 o'clock. Deleting Photoshop from his old lap top to free up an activation, establishing an internet connection on his old laptop, finally downloading Photoshop onto his new laptop only to have it turn off right in the middle of the installation because the battery died. I tried to make it work, but finally by 8 o'clock I gave up. Maybe I'll blog on Monday.

goodbye for now

Some people come into our lives and we are better just for having known them.

For any of you who knew Roland Trump, you know that he was that kind of man.
He and his sweet wife Suzie raised 9 wonderful children, 6 of which they adopted.
He served in the scouting program for many years where he influenced many boys for good.
When one of those scouts didn't show up for church,
he would visit them and invite them back.
He would take them to baseball games, just one on one.
He always had a few dollars to share with the homeless.
It was just in his nature to love everyone,
his family, his neighbors, the homeless, and the Lord.

Tyler had the honor of being one of his scouts. Roland took Tyler under his wing and kept him involved. My family also had the privledge of knowing him throughout the years because my mom helped clean their house. I got to go cleaning with her the summer Tyler and I started dating. Since Roland knew both Tyler and I, he took a special interest in our courtship. He warned me that Tyler was "an old returned mission who looking for a wife, so I better watch out because he would try to marry me". He was a big propenent of our getting married, and always quick so ask how we were doing since.

Roland found out about two years ago that we was diagnosed with ALS (lou gehric's disease). His body slowly turned on him and his muscles and organs shut down one by one. But that didn't stop his love and service. He kept visiting neighbors and serving in any way he could, until the day he died.

On Thursday, February 18th, 2010, Roland Trump passed away.

He will be remember by Tyler and I, and many more, as an amazing man who served everyone around him. There are many more accounts of his life, told by people who are much more elequent, found here. I hope I can always remember his example and try my best to live as good of life as he did. We'll miss you Roland.

Happy Valentine's Day (a few days late)

Tyler and I celebrated Valentine's Day early this year by

going to the Jazz game on Wednesday when they played the Lakers.

From the picture below you can see we has awesome seats.

Not! Despite that, and the fact that the Lakers killed us, we still had fun.

Happy Valentine's Day!

On Books

I recently finished reading this book

and I LOVED it.

It was the first book that I literally could not put down.

I preferred reading it over miniature golfing on our cruise.

And it actually kept my mind enthralled during Tyler's hours of surgery a few days later.

However, I have not been able to get into this book.

I know all you fans will say I just need to give it a chance and I'll love it...

...but I think I've figured out that I just don't really like fiction books.

I feel so unproductive when I read them.

I can't get through a page without thinking about

the dishes I need to wash or the taxes I need to file,

or the other books I could be reading and learning something from.

I guess I was just blessed with a desire to read good books.

Personally, I'm glad.

this vs. that

Let's say you had a choice between

a) doing something you like that you're comfortable with,
which is rewarding and would be fine

or

b) doing something you really like that would be challenging,
and has the potential to be really rewarding

what would you do?
Please leave me feedback here cuz I could use some guidance

i have a very cute nephew...

...that's all you need to know.

also, if anyone knows how to help me fix my margins
that'd be very helpful.