Our Crazy Christmas Story!

Christmas this year was fantastic, despite the fact that a lot of it did not go how it was planned. We were all supposed to be at my grandma's house for Christmas Eve and stay over for Christmas morning as well for our annual brunch and present-opening.  Half way through dinner, the fun began with my grandma choking on her food.  The choking got so bad that her face turned blue and everyone jumped up to administer the heimlich maneuver, but luckily her body decided at the last minute to get rid of it itself.  Only a few short minutes later, we heard a strange loud beeping and realized it was the carbon monoxide detector going off.  Since my parents had just bought it a few weeks earlier, we thought maybe something was wrong with it, so we took it outside and it immediately stopped.  When we brought it back in, it started beeping again.  To be on the safe side, we figured we had better call someone to check on this. A few minutes later the Salt Lake City fire department was at our curbside, flashing lights and all.  Turns out the house had a dangerous level of carbon monoxide in it and we had to turn off the heat, open all of the windows and doors, and leave the house for the night.  We ended up coming back to our apartment, but not without another adventure.  On the way, Lisa and Brandon realized their car's check engine light came on.  Luckily they made it back to Provo that night but they wouldn't have made it much farther since it blew some gasket or something. Basically I felt like we were living our own version of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. However, despite all of the unexpected craziness, we were still able to work everything out and have a good time together as a family, which is the most important part!

The only picture I got of Christmas Eve was, of course, the fire engine outside the house:

Our first Christmas together as a married couple:

We got a lot of great gifts (not that gifts matter) but some of the goods included an electric blanket (Hallelujah! I can sleep at night!), a basketball, ear muffs, gloves, some cute Christmas decorations, a leatherman (some fancy knife thing), clothes, a nice waterbottle, yummy hot fudge, family pictures, and some dinero!  Santa must have thought we were good this year!

Ryan got a present as tall as him! (Or maybe it was a decoy box and there was something really small taped to the bottom. :))

He also got a cool new coat (a.k.a. his mom's old coat from a long time ago that we found in the back of the coat closet):

We decided to save a little money and made our own stockings this year... for about $3.00 total!  They're no pottery barn stockings, but we had a lot of fun making them! 

We headed downtown for a little date to eat dinner and see the lights at temple square. We had a gift card so dinner was free... until we went to pay and realized I left the gift card at home, dang it! It was freezing cold that night and absolutely no parking anywhere close to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, but we still had fun and loved looking at the beautiful decorations in the building! (P.S. This is my first picture taken with my braces... hence the semi-awkward smile on my face):

All of this holiday stuff really tuckered Ryan out and this is how I found him one day.  Actually, he was home sick that day and our apartment complex decided to test the fire alarm in our building during his nap so this was his solution!

Well, another Christmas has come and gone, but we had a lot of fun and really enjoyed decorating our apartment together, starting some little traditions, and spending lot's of time with each other and family!

Typical :)

I just found out that I have to go to Chicago again in March for work.  Since everyone I am meeting with is already in Chicago, the actual day depends on when I can come.  Before I gave an answer, I decided to email Ryan and make sure I wasn't forgetting anything important coming up in March.  This was his response:

"I don’t think anything is planned for March right now…except for the end of college basketball, the MWC Tournament in Vegas, and the NCAA Tournament (round 2 will have some games in Salt Lake).  Other than that I can’t think of anything right now…maybe BYU Football season ticket renewal is around that time too. J"

Oh, of course!  How could I forget about March Madness (which I didn't, actually... that's a very important month around here)!  I think I'll just call up my boss and ask if we can switch it to April since I have some very important basketball games to watch that month.  To be quite honest though, when I sent the email, I already knew that his response would include something about basketball! I love my life. That's all.

Young Women mutual ideas

Ok, I cannot seem to revert back to my teenage years and remember my mutual activities... but I know we had some good ones!  Anyway, I am in serious need of a list of some good class activities for my beehives.  If you remember any fun activities from your days in Young Women's, please let me know (oh, and as soon as possible please).  THANKS!!

P.S. I was talking to the young women about what we were doing for mutual on Wednesday and apparently "'mutual' is a term their grandmas use."  These days it's just plain old "Young Women's."  Seriously?! If their grandmas are 25 years old, then maybe they are correct.  But we always called it mutual.  Whatever.

Good news!

Guess what?  Both the Orem and Draper In-N-Outs open this next Thursday, November 19th!  I may or may not have called their corporate offices just to check... but when you pass it like 5 times a day, you can't help but always wonder when it will open since it looks done.  Yay for not having to cook dinner next Thursday!  

In celebration, I will leave you with In-N-Out's "Secret Menu" items so you can be ready to throw out the real In-N-Out lingo.

And check out this 20X20 someone actually ordered and ate:

One/Two Years ago

As I was working today I had to check the date and realized that it was November 2nd. Exactly two years ago, on a Friday night, Ryan and I went on our first date to Comedy Sports, hot chocolate, and games till 2:30 a.m. (and I didn't even get tired!).  Then our second date was the next day to a BYU football game (definitely a foreshadow of the future) vs. Colorado State.  Then our third date was that next Tuesday to the movie theater where we saw the Bee Movie.  Then our fourth date was on Wednesday at the HBLL.  Then our fifth date was on Thursday to make pesto pasta for lunch at my apartment.  Then our sixth date was on Friday in Alpine to make pizza with his cousins and their spouses at his house.  Then, well... you get the picture...

A little less than a year later, and a few weeks after I got back from Chicago, we started talking about marriage more seriously.  I told Ryan that September was too soon for me, as was October, but that from November on was probably free game.  Lo and behold, November 1st, 2008, Ryan asked me to marry him.  Ha!  He sure didn't waste any time (which I was okay with)!

Anyway, it is crazy how fast time has gone by!  It is unbelievable how much we have done in the last year or two.  So, to reminisce, I went back through all of our old pictures and had a great walk down memory lane.  The end.

Happy Halloween, from Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head!

Ryan and I didn't really plan on dressing up or doing anything for Halloween.  Then, Thursday night we decided to make costumes so Ryan would have something to wear to his work party and for our little Halloween get-together with the Scott's on Saturday.  After little debate, we agreed to be Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head.  Let's just say we stayed up waaaaay past our bedtime to get this done on time for Ryan to wear to work the next day.  But it was totally worth it for these pics: 

Here's the Mister hopping on his trax ride into town, lunch sac in hand:

Don't be fooled by this picture... trax got a lot more full as the ride went on!  Ryan definitely had some admirers.

Still not sure how he worked all day like this, but he did:

We won't even tell you what time in the night (morning) this was taken at, and please ignore the costume mess in the background:

The final product: Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head:

The Happy Couple's first kiss caught on camera.  It was great (our eyes say it all):

After a little trick-or-treating with the tough little soccer player (Tyler) and kitty-cat ballerina (Susie) around the neighborhood, Ryan and I headed out to meet up with Hannah Montana and Billy Ray Cyrus for dinner and carmel apples.  It was a total party in the U.S.A. Chili's Restaurant.

In case you're wondering, it really WAS as uncomfortable/awkward as it looks.  But totally worth it.

College GameDay

It came.  We went.  We had fun.  Then BYU got killed.  The end.  So when we got to the GameDay setup, we counted a LOT of tents outside from people who had slept out the night before to get a good spot.  We also know a bunch of people who went and joined the ranks at 4 and 5am.  Ryan and I got there at about 8 am and we still had a good view and a lot of fun.  One of the best parts was reading all of the signs and people-watching.

Gardner Village

This place is awesome at Halloween time.  They have witch displays everywhere and big trees covered in green twinkle lights.  There were also a bunch of cute little shops that were having great deals (and some not-so-great deals) on home decor.  There was also a little candy store that sold cool flavors of taffy and tons of random flavors of fudge, which we of course couldn't resist trying.  It was definitely a fun activity to put you in a Halloweenish mood!

My mom thinks that this witch's attitude and mine have something in common and made me pose with her.

My parents have always been way into fashion.  Exhibit A:

The most amazing fudge!  I picked white chocolate or vanilla praline and Ryan got cinnamon crumb cake fudge.

Okay, so this one was at Wal-Mart but for some reason Ryan didn't want to take any pics with the witches.

Iron Chef: Martin Style

An old ward activity we used to do was Iron Chef (based off of the Food Network's show).  You get some random ingredients that you MUST have in your concoction and see what each team comes up with.

Well, one Saturday night a few weeks ago Ryan and I found ourselves wondering what to do, so we racked our brains and decided to do an iron chef competition and make something for Sunday dessert the next day.  There were 3 requirements:

1) Chocolate Syrup

2) Cereal

3) Fruit

So after our grocery store visit, this is what we came home with:

Don't even worry that we bought this all on a Saturday night and had eaten it all by Tuesday night.  Luckily this was during the peak of our race-training so we ran it all off.  (That wouldn't be the case these days!)

Anyway, Ryan made some really yummy chocolate ice cream cake.  His cereal was the chocolate Honey Bunches of Oats and his fruit were raspberries, which made it soooo good!  I made a Reece's Mud Pie.  My cereal was Peanut Butter and Chocolate crunch and my fruit was a banana mashed into the pudding layer (which I surprisingly liked more than the normal way without banana).  They both tasted delicious so we called it a tie.  I promised they tasted so much better than the pictures portray, but here they are:

Who is so excited...

...that ESPN's College GameDay will be in our very own, Provo, Utah this Saturday?!?!?  Apparently not just my husband:

(Convo. this morning with my mom:)

Me: Hey did you hear that College GameDay is in Provo this Saturday?

Mom (enthusiatically): Yeah!  How cool!  Lisa just told me that this morning.

Me: Yeah, pretty cool.

slight pause

Me: Do you even know what College GameDay is?

Mom: Uhh...no.  What is it?

Haha.  I thought it was funny.  Anyway, on an unrelated side note, I accidentally spilled a minced-garlic mixture on my pants this morning and now I can't get rid of the nasty garlic smell on my hands.  I've washed myself, changed my clothes, put on smelly lotion... nothing works.  Any suggestions for getting rid of the smell?

Ragnar Relay: Las Vegas

Run. Drive. Sleep (?). Repeat.  That's the slogan of the Ragnar Relays, and how true it is!  This last week, Ryan and I ran 171 miles in a group of 12 people.  We all ran 3 different legs of the race, each varying in length and difficulty.  It took our team 26 hours, 50 minutes to complete (which was 3 hours and 10 minutes faster than our expected time!).  We weren't really trying to compete, we just wanted to have fun and say we ran a Ragnar.  We ended up taking 88th place out of 200 teams, and 4th place in our category... not too shabby if you ask us!  We started the run through the red rocks in the Valley of Fire, then ran around Lake Mead, and ended up at the Red Rock Hotel and Spa in Las Vegas.  We'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story:

Our team name was "12 Hot Runners" and we were each a different "hot"... Icy Hot, Smoking Hot, Drop it like it's Hot, Pretty Hot, Red Hot, Oven Hot (for the girl that was 4 mo. preg), etc. etc.

Here's the whole team with the Ragnar Van and our metals.  

There are van decorating prizes and let me tell ya... some people went all out: Christmas lights, dirty underwear all over the van, a wheelchair on top, a halo on top, a devil tail off the back and horns on the front.... seeing the vans was half the fun!

There were all sorts of crazy people in costumes... we saw Elvis, girls all running in tu-tu's, angels, devils, guys who only ran in speedos, a team of mullets...

Ryan still fresh during his first run.  Okay, he was fresh the whole time... he rocked all of his runs and everyone was jealous of his long stride!  (And no, I am not having my own little dance party on the side of the road- I was giving him water at the half-way point.)

Here I am still fresh on my first run.  Unlike Ryan, however, my time gradually went a little downhill with each run.  And no one was jealous of my stride (or my t-rex looking arm... I hope I didn't always run like that! ha!) :)

Here's the beautiful park where we first crashed with hundreds of other people.  We woke up and left to meet our other van at the next exchange at about 9 pm and we got to run until 12:30 or 1 am.  It was awesome running in the middle of the mountains by yourself on a clear night with no lights (I actually thought I would be scared, but I wasn't).

This was our second crashing place where we snoozed for a few more hours until our last run started at 4:30 am.  As you can see, this was not as luxurious as our previous one.  We were with hundreds of other vans at a school parking lot and the grass had all just been watered so there was no where to lay out our sleeping bags.  I'm sure some other vans were mad when we took up a whole parking spot to sleep in.  But ya gotta do whatcha gotta do.  We put our cooler with our flashing caution lights at the end of the spot so no cars would miss us and run us over.

Yay!  We did it!  Here we are at the Red Rock hotel where we ended!  While we had a ton of fun, we swore we weren't going to ever do one again.  (No sleep, no meals, and tons of running can really get to you!).  But a few nights later we found ourselves looking up all of the other Ragnar Relays and going through the other maps to figure out which ones we would want to do (there's one in Washington state that looks awesome...to all my Washington friends out there, any takers?  I'm serious.  Go look it up)!

The End.

General Conference

Let's be honest, who doesn't love General Conference?  Since moving to Utah, I have had a luxury that I never got growing up: watching it on t.v. from the comfort of your home (sometimes still in pajamas).  While that is a wonderful thing, there's still nothing like actually going to a conference session and being in the presence of the Prophet, the Apostles, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  

Flowers and Family

A few weeks ago I went to Chicago.  Not for fun, for work.  Ryan missed me so much and showed it by having a beautiful bouquet of flowers awaiting me at the apartment (okay, and we had family coming in town and needed to brighten up our boring apartment a bit).  Anyway, those flowers lasted well over a week and smelled lovely!  Thanks again, Ry!

As mentioned, we had my Grandma Harlan and Aunt Wanda come in town to see Lisa's new baby (and spoil it... I don't think they will ever have to do laundry, she has so many new clothes).  It was a lot of fun showing them the ropes around here and having some good old family time.  

Bright spot in a gloomy sports weekend

Lucky?  Probably.  But still sorta neat.  Ryan is ranked #22 in the national leader board of college pick 'em... out of about 250,000 people!!  We saw his name on the leaderboard and thought we should capture the moment since it probably won't last for too long:

"Labor" Day

My younger sister, Lisa, had her own definition of Labor Day.  At 4:41 p.m., all 6 lbs. 15 oz. and 20 in. of cute little Ashlynn Susan Jastal graced our presence!  The baby was just fine, but Lisa had some complications for a few days.  She is doing much better now.

The proud new parents:

The new grandpa:

Anyway, we also hiked to the Timpanogos Caves in the morning, swam all afternoon, and had a BBQ dinner.  The hike to the caves was actually a decent workout!  I have no room to complain though, seeing as Marc and Michelle each carried a child the whole way and I only had my sweatshirt.

Bennett waving hi to us on the hike up (I know it's blurry, but it was too cute):