Sunday, January 8, 2012

Home for the Holidays

It has been awhile but I just haven't had time to post or much to post about. But now I do! I was able to go home for Christmas and New Year's this year so I was home for almost a week and a half and it was amazing. I love being home with my family and spending time with them. We missed Taryn and Grant this year but they are moving closer this summer so I'm excited. For Christmas we had a Christmas Eve dinner with just our family and one of the senior sisters is our ward.
Karleigh and I were dancing the cha cha to Feliz Navidad and the sister asked Karleigh to teach her so Karleigh cha cha danced with her. It was pretty awesome. Then Karleigh and I built a Christmas Eve fort to sleep in, it was fun and surprisingly comfortable for sleeping on the floor.
We woke up Christmas morning and went through our stocking and opened a few gifts before church.
Then we came home and got back into our PJs (well Kars and I did) and opened the rest of our presents. I went to Jonny's for a little bit and opened presents with their family. A few days later my family went to Monterey for a few days. I had missed a few trips there with my family so they decided to take me. The weather was about the best you could ask for in the winter, low 60s and sunny with the clouds rolling in in the evening. We enjoyed looking at the ocean and going around the local shops. Our hotel was right on the beach and the view was amazing.
On our second day we went to Phil's Fish Market (one of the main reasons for going) for a late lunch.
It was a nice trip and so great to be by the ocean.
On New Year's Eve Jonny's family came over we ate dinner played games and enjoyed being together.
A picture at the end of 2011.
And then the same one at the beginning of 2012.
Group shot, both families. (Missing Taryn & Grant and Aaron & Elena)
We went to my dad's ward on Sunday and then it was time to start packing up. It was such a great trip and so nice to be home and have some time to relax. We had a day where we drove around taking Davis pictures and went bowling which was tons of fun. Kars and I watched a lot of How I Met Your Mother (she got me addicted) and painting our nails with cool designs. It was a great holiday season but as always it ended too quickly.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Punny Halloween

Jonny came up with his Halloween costume idea for this year on Halloween last year. Then a few months later I randomly came up with mine. Then after many hours of work, countless conversations on how to actually make them work and 6 cans of spray paint (which is a lot of fumes.) We had our costumes.
"Hooked on Phonics" and "Stuck on Band-Aid Brand"
Jonny's was actually a huge box attached to a backpack and then put through a shirt.
Mine was the thing you use for dryers that was then stuck on and L-brace (the things used to put up shelves) which was duct taped to my stomach. Which meant it was not only the most awkward costume I have ever had but it was also the most painful. My skin is still recovering. But it was worth it (as long as I don't have to do it again.)
We had a fun night with Jonny's cousins on Saturday night.On actual Halloween we were pretty lame and did nothing. But those are our costumes. We're pretty proud of them.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Still Alive...Just Boring



Don't worry I am still alive. I wish I could say I haven't posted because I have been too busy doing totally amazing things but it's not true. I haven't done a whole lot recently but work and such has just left me exhausted so there have been no posts for over a month. Sorry. I am moved into my new place and I like it, it is nicer but in the same complex as my old place. I got a new car, a Nissan Sentra.
I love it. It has lots of fun features I have enjoyed playing with. The Corolla was just starting to give out on me, the AC went out which would mean no defroster in the winter so I decided it was time. I literally cried when Jonny and I walked out to the Corolla after buying my new car. I know it seems dumb but I have some great memories with that car and it has been amazing for me over the past 8 years or so. We have gone to a few football games.
One heartbreaking, the others not so much but the team is still not performing to the level I think they should. I am done with trainings for work which is a relief. Karleigh and Jonny went to court to testify in the case of the people who robbed the storage unit. I think Jonny had fun shutting down the defense who tried to twist his words. According to Karleigh he rocked it. That has pretty much been my life over the past month and a half. Hopefully I will have more to update about from now on but I don't know that I will.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Crime Fighters

So here is the more in depth story...
The background:
- When Karleigh went home for summer, she got a storage unit to store all the things she was leaving behind.
- Karleigh's unit is in a small hallway in the back corner of the facility.
- The storage facility her unit is at has security gates, but doesn't have any on-site security personnel.
- Over the past few weeks Jonny and I have noticed one of the storage facility's security gates has been left open.
- Jonny had been to the unit on Monday.
The story:
On Wednesday I was working on moving out of my apartment and I was taking some of my stuff to the storage unit. When we got there, I walked into the hallway and our lock was gone. I called out to Jonny to let him know. He informed me he was there on Monday and that the lock was absolutely there at that time. We opened the door and the unit seemed a little emptier than we remembered.
Jonny looked at the other locks in the hallway and almost all of them had cut marks on them. On our unit you could see where the metal wall had been dented by the thief when he used it for leverage.
I called Karleigh and tried to figure out if anything was actually missing. She asked me if there was a laundry bag full of shoes. There wasn't. Three duffle bags full of clothes? Not that either. It was evident there were several things missing and at that point, we called the police. After about 45 minutes of waiting, an officer showed up. He had us fill out a police report and write down what was missing from the unit, along with an estimate of the value of those items (no easy task - especially since it wasn't our stuff.) We gave the report to the officer figuring we could use it in a case against the storage facility but knowing we would probably never see the stolen items again. We got our case number, the officer's name and phone number, and that was that.
Afterward, we moved the remaining stuff toward the back of the unit, closed the door and headed off to WalMart to get a new lock. We grabbed a lock (two actually) and then returned to the storage unit. When we got back, I started to open the door and my heart sank. On the floor near the front of the unit was a sleeping bag that I KNEW was not where I left it. I slid the door up the rest of the way and about half of the remaining items were now gone too. I yelled to Jonny that more stuff was gone and immediately burst into tears. He came over and immediately called the officer back. Jonny was actually excited by the news because he knew the thief was close by and was likely to come back. I then called Karleigh again (in tears) to tell her more stuff was gone. She had been pretty ok with everything but the second robbery upset her more because this time they stole the bin that held her letters from Steven (her missionary.)
The officer came back and was shocked that more stuff was missing. He had us add on to the police report while another officer checked for the thief in nearby areas.
I started to fill out more of the report when Jonny came over and said we were going to go park across the street while the officer hid around the corner in case the thief returned.
...So we went and sat across the street. Every time a car drove by, we got excited but nothing happened for about 45 mins. Finally, a car came down the street and slowly drove past the open gate, scoping out the area. They then pulled into the next driveway, turned around, and pulled in through the unlocked gate. Jonny turned the car on and said, "I'm blocking them in. I'm not letting them out of the parking lot." Jonny pulled out into the street and moments later, we saw headlights coming back out of the storage garage. So Jonny peeled out, then slammed on the breaks in front of the car, blocking the exit. I had my camera out so we could snap a picture. At first the people in the car seemed confused, thinking to themselves, "what is this guy doing?" Then they saw the camera and realized what was happening. The look on their faces quickly changed to, "Holy crap!" They started revving their engine and yelling at Jonny to get out of the way. Jonny didn't budge. They backed up and cut across the grass to go around us. Jonny flipped the car around so he could see where they went. He was prepared to follow and was about to when the cop came flying out of the storage garage. If Jonny hadn't blocked the exit for what amounted to about 30 seconds, it would have been too late and the burglars would have been gone. The cop slowed down behind Jonny but Jonny waved him past. He peeled out after the car and Jonny followed close behind. Unfortunately for the "bad guys," and fortunately for us, they turned into a neighborhood that only has three exits - all of which exit onto the street we were on. The thieves turned down one street, the officer turned down another, and Jonny pulled in front of the third and parked us where he could see all three exits. Shortly thereafter, more and more cops started pulling into the neighborhood. With about 5 cops surrounding the thieves, they finally pulled over. Jonny and I just sat there, about a block away, watching as they arrested the thieves. After about 45 minutes the cop cars started to leave and one pulled over next to us. They asked if we were the property owners and said "We'll go get all your stuff and bring it back to you in about half an hour." We were ecstatic, relieved, pumped up, worn out, and about a million other things! After about 30-40 minutes, we got a call to meet the police at our storage unit. When we pulled up, there was a huge pile of Karleigh's stuff laid out in front of the unit. After a couple car loads, almost everything was back. We signed a few papers, talked and laughed with the officers about the crazy night, and at about 5:00 in the morning, we were finally done with the trip that had started at 8:30 that night.
The result:
- We got almost all of Karleigh's stuff back. There may still be a few things missing but we won't know for sure until Karleigh gets back and looks through everything herself. But we know most of it is there (including the missing letters)!
- We didn't get to sleep until around 5:30 AM, despite only getting one load of my stuff to the unit that night... which was compounded the following night when Jonny and I went entirely without sleep as we moved the rest of my stuff to the unit. This, of course, meant my head was bobbing at work all the following day (not great when counting someone else's cash).
- Finally, it resulted in a really awesome story made even better by the fact that we caught the "bad guys."



...It's also kinda fun to say "we got robbed."

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

A Few Things

It has been awhile mostly I have been exhausted and stressed so I haven't made the time to post so now it is time to play catch-up. Two weekends ago Jonny and I went to see Harry Potter in IMAX 3D. It was pretty awesome, I didn't think it would be much better than regular 3D but it really was. The theater we went to was right across from the Real Salt Lake stadium and when we got out the game was just starting so following along with my doing fun things in Utah we decided to go. It was really fun. We walked up and asked for their cheapest tickets which put us behind one of the goals but on the 5th row so it was pretty cool.
We were in the section with all the crazy fans, there was a band playing pretty much the whole time and organized chants. I was surprised how vulgar the fans were pretty much every cheer had some amount of swearing. I guess I'm just mostly used to BYU fans but I still think they are worse than most other fans. I was also shocked when the opposing goalie was on our side the fans kept throwing crate paper at him.
Had no idea that would be allow but I guess it is. Unfortunately we lost but we still had fun, now I can cross pro soccer game off my list.
Then on Tuesday Aaron and Elena came and stayed for a few days. (Sorry I didn't take pictures here.) It was so good to see them! I have missed them a ton and now they are headed to Boston so it was nice to get to see them for a few days. We played games of course good old Bang! and BuzzWord. Elena and I took a two hour walk and got sent on a detour that put us on a shadeless street for awhile which resulted in a nice sunburn for me. While they were here my car semi-died again, luckily it was on my day off and not when I was trying to get to work. Luckily/Unluckily it was my AC doing something weird to a belt so as long as I don't turn my AC on I can drive but the AC is very pricey to repair so now I am driving AC-less and trying to decide where to go from there.
Then on Saturday one of our best friends from home, Megan, got married to we went out to her reception in Draper. It was in her new in-law's backyard and it was very pretty and of course she was beautiful!
So that is what we have been up to the past few weeks.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Katy Perry

On Monday Jonny and I went to the Katy Perry concert. I randomly decided to buy tickets one night after watching several of her music videos. Also, I decided since craziness at work makes it so I can't really take a vacation this summer I would do some fun stuff in Utah, like this concert. It was so much fun! We had a great time it was quite a show. It was such a different atmosphere than any other concert I have been to. So here are some pictures.
She had so many different outfits!
These lights were awesome.
The screen the birds are on is her dress.
She went out over the audience on a cotton candy cloud.
Her Hershey Kiss outfit for California Girls.
Whipped cream gun.
And a video of our cotton candy. Yes, I had to take a video of cotton candy.
So many people had these light sticks it was cool to have the whole place lighting up. Definitely worth it. I love her songs they are so fun and she was great live.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Spanish Fork Rodeo

This weekend Jonny and I went to the Spanish Fork Rodeo. I had never been to a rodeo and my friend had told me this one was awesome so we decided to check it out. It did not disappoint. Jonny had been in California for two weeks so I picked him up from the airport in the afternoon and then in the evening we headed down to Spanish Fork. Before the rodeo started we checked out the vendor booths and the car show and then headed over to the arena for the show. (You can't tell from the picture but I also wore cowboy boots. Yes Karleigh, they were your boots and that is your hat and your shirt.)
It was so cool. I honestly don't know how these guys stay on the bucking broncos and the bulls. All I know is it does not look comfortable. There was only one guy who really got thrown up in the air and made you cringe as he hit the ground but he seemed fine.
One of my favorites was the Mutton Busters: little kids riding on sheep. It was so funny all these kids probably 8 and under holding onto the sheep as they go running around. One kid rode it backwards and was just hanging on with all his might. Unfortunately I missed getting video on the best Mutton Busters. I did get some good steer roping video thought. I have no idea how the guys rope steer so quickly, the are out of the chute and done in about seven seconds, it is crazy. I was also amazed by the trick riders. I got video of this too but I think it is too big for blogger. It was pretty crazy though. Still the highlight had to be the bull riding, those guys are crazy. It was totally worth it and lived up to my rodeo expectations.