Tom time

It's Toms time.  I've been thinking about it for a loooooong time and I'm gonna get them.  

I'm just not sure which pair to get.  Help me out?

Choice #1  Brown herringbone

Choice #2 Classic and natural

Choice #3 Go with almost everything in my wardrobe (and look at the animals inside!) ...yet kind of boring

Choice #4  My favorite color, but not as versatile. 

Choice #5 I feel like this is a boring choice, but I really love the grey.

There are some other super fun choices, but I think my first pair needs to be a solid instead of patterned.

What do you think?  Which pair gets your vote?

Time

After listening to Ian S. Arden talk about using time wisely and hearing the bishop in my ward talk about staying busy with good things I have been thinking about what I spend my time on.


To say that I have been slacking when it comes to exercising would be a gross understatement...  I did okay over the summer, but when I went back to work when school started I had less time.  I kept thinking that after I got in a good routine and settled into this school year I'd have more time. 

Guess what...  That never happened!  In fact the opposite happened--I got a fairly time intensive calling and had less time than before.  Yet despite that I still managed time to watch TV.  



I have decided that I need to cut out most of my TV watching.  This past week I have watched substantially less than I am used to.   This week is October break and I thought this would be the perfect time to start down the road to being fit again.  3 weeks ago I started doing yoga with a friend but that was only once a week.  Yesterday I power walked to my brother's house (He lives 2 miles from me) and today I rode to my parents' house and back (14 miles).  Last night I also decided to stop eating deep fried foods and sweets until Thanksgiving.  I'll need a slice of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving.  Time to get healthy!


And you know what?  I feel pretty great!

AZ beauty

 I watched this a couple days ago on a friend's blog.  I didn't think too much of it at the time, but it keeps sneaking back into my mind.  Take a look.  Enjoy!

 

"Landscapes: Volume 2 is the second of a three part series (probably). Every frame of this video is a raw still from a Canon 5D2 DSLR and processed with Adobe software. In Volume 2 I again show off my beautiful home state of Arizona and I also made several trips to Utah. This video has some iconic landmarks that we have seen before. I felt that showing them again with motion controlled HDR and/or night timelapse would be a new way to see old landmarks."

New friends

On Saturday Tanner came home with these little guys.  They're only about 3 weeks old and less than 3 inches long.  They've been fun to have around.  

We're still trying to decide what to name them.  Suggestions?

greatest accomplishment ever!

To say that it's hard to surprise my husband is an understatement.  He takes great pride in this.  I on the other hand hate it.  

He can always guess what gifts are, what I'm thinking, where I am taking him.  Last Christmas I got him a keyboard and had it shipped to my parents' house.  He saw it under their tree twice before Christmas and I am quite certain he knew what it was.  I told him that if he guessed what it was (and was right) that I was going to send it back... 

In the 4 years we've been together (minus last week) I think that only time I managed to surprise him was with the engraving on the inside of his wedding ring.

That being said... Tanner's birthday was last week.  He turned the big 2-5.  

We had been meaning to re-roof our house and decided to start it last weekend (take off Friday and start putting on Saturday).  Tanner's birthday fell on that Friday.  Tanner isn't much for birthdays: actually he doesn't care for his at ALL.  I have been trying to change that...

About a week and a half before his birthday I decided that a surprise party was in order.  Considering his feelings about birthdays and how difficult it is to surprise him I was a little anxious.  We got up early to start taking the roof off.  I met him for lunch at Rigatoni's.  It was a pretty regular, boring birthday.  After work his dad and brother came over again to do a little more on the roof.  I went and borrowed my dad's truck to go get some shingles and tar paper from Home Depot. 

The party was scheduled for 8:00 at the swimming pool.  I know that if I just asked him to go swimming he would resist.  So I got my brother in on the plan.  He called Tanner and said that they were over swimming with my parents and wanted to give him a present before they headed home (they live a good 25 minutes from us).  My brother asked if Tanner was available to stop by to get the gift.  He said he could do that.  When he talked to me about it I told him I had my dad's truck with me and it would be great if we could swap cars back at the same time.  

I ran into trouble at Home Depot (that story to follow in another post) and 8:00 came and went.  We were behind schedule and Tanner was just going to go to the pool to get his 'present' from my brother without me.  I convinced him that I would be home very shortly from the store and would like to go with him to return my dad's truck.  We got to the pool around 8:30.  We pulled into the parking lot and there were cars everywhere (apparently there was an event going on [the pool shares a parking lot with a church building])  That actually turned out to be a great thing because he didn't recognize any cars.

I had texted my mom on the way over to the pool so she could get everyone ready for the surprise.  We walked in and everyone jumped out and yelled "SURPRISE!"  At first Tanner just looked around confused.  Then he saw all my family, his family, and friends and it sunk in.  He was actually surprised!  It was a miracle.  He was surprised!!!

We didn't get pictured of the actual surprise part.  In fact, I didn't even have my camera.  I did, however, get a few poor quality pictures on my phone:

Taking candles out of the cake.  I love how closely our 2 nephews in the background are watching!

Me eating some cotton candy.

One of our nephews munching away.   We had cake, nachos, watermelon, and cotton candy.  

Happy birthday to Tanner and happy surprising to me!

Ceramincs

Tanner and I thought it's be fun to take a ceramics class.  So this summer we have been makin' pots on the wheel.  

My brother, Tanner's sister, and Tanner's brother are in the class with us as well and it has been a LOT of fun!  We go to class Monday evenings and then we get to go to one 'open studio' a week for free.  A couple weeks ago I ran into a friend at open studio.  It was fun to make fancy things and catch up with her.

I can't throw very big pots yet, but I have improved over the course of the class.  Here is the only picture I have remembered to take.  The 3 front pieces are mine.

Tanner and I are now thinking about buying a wheel for our house.  What do you think?  Is that a worthwhile investment?

New little guy

My sister-in-law had this sweet little guy 3 weeks ago.

Curtis Ron Burnham: 7lbs 15 oz 21 1/2 in long

My parents were out of town getting my brother from his mission so I was babysitting my youngest two siblings.  we got to go see the new addition in the hospital.  

Have I ever mentioned that newborns are one of my favorite things in the world?!  Well they are.  In fact I held this guy for more than an hour last night and loved every second.  So tiny (mini ears, fingers, lips, ears, toes, everything!  I love it!), so sweet and so squishy!  I love how they just curl right up and fit so nicely in my arms.  All in all I love having this new guy as part of the family!

Sailing

 Last month we headed to San Diego with my mom's side of the family for our annual family reunion.  My mom rented a sailboat for us to ride.  Good times were had.  The weather was windy and chilly and we watched as catamaran after catamaran tipped over around us.  We thought they were all so incompetent until we realized that they were doing some kind of training and were tipping over on purpose...

 

 

 

Also, I am fairly certain my brother was born to be a sailor.

Coming soon

This guy is coming home from his mission in about 3 weeks!

Quarter Century

I had my birthday and now I'm a quarter century old!  The big 2-5!

For my birthday this year my dad (who is a pilot) flew us up to Heber to stay at their cabin Friday night. 

 

 

 

We got to the cabin just after 6 and fell asleep by 6:30.  I thought we'd take a little nap then go to dinner.  Turns out we were so tired that we slept ALL night!  I didn't get up till 7:30 the next morning.

 The next day we went to lunch at Casa Ramos.  Tanner ordered the Mexican pizza which turned out to be enough food for 3.

I ordered a burrito which was also way more food than I could eat!  But it was tasty.

 While we were out and about we went to the local Heber thrift store.  We stumbled across these fantastic jump suits!  A deal we simply could not pass up.

We headed back to the cabin and napped (because we obviously hadn't slept enough the night before) and relaxed all afternoon.  My dad came and got us around six that night and flew back home.  It wasn't a very long getaway, but it was so nice and so relaxing.

The next night we went to Sunday dinner at my in-laws.  My sister-in-law Tabitha made me two delicious cakes.  They sang to me, we ate, and enjoyed each others company.  here are some pictures from that evening.  (Thanks Lisa for the pictures!)

All in all my birthday was a success!  Tanner also bought me a beach cruiser bike that is so much fun!

So here's to being 25!

Check

Here's a glimpse into my week:


Renew teaching certificate.   Check

Get a flat tire on the freeway.     Check

New catalytic converter in my car.     Check

Fail emissions.     Check

Pass Emissions.     Check

Take care of a very sick hubby.     Check

Avoid working out.     Check

Have the bug man spray my house.     Check

Go to a class on Saturday.     Check

Have 2 of my kids ditch class in the morning to go to QT.     Check

Boy in my class write "have s*x with (name of a girl in my class)" on a little piece of paper.     Check

Get my teaching contract for next year.     Check.

Get car registration renewed.     Check

Take the final for my online class.     Check

Keep a mostly positive attitude.     Check

Reunion

I high school I had 3 best girl friends.  We did EVERYTHING together.  We went on adventures, we were crazy, we had SO much fun!  (and I found out later we were pretty closed off to the idea of letting anyone else in...  I think we were just so content that that thought never crossed our minds.  But that's beside the point.)  

(This picture is about 5 years old.  We didn't take a picture last night.  Also, don't mind my hunchback... I was just trying to get in the picture better or something silly.)

Well, last night the 4 of us got together for dinner.  We caught up on each others lives, got caught up on other people's lives, and reminisced.  We even went on a small adventure.  It was a lot of fun.

It also reminded me of how unsocial I am these days.  And I feel like I should want to change that..

Anyways, it was a LOT of fun and briefly made me miss my high school days.  Good memories! 

Garden Update

   Over Spring Break I planted a garden. This is what it looked like. 

 

Now, a month and a half later it looks like this:

CRAZY, right?!  

 

We have a bell pepper growing.

About 50 tomatoes!

   

And yesterday I picked a zucchini!!!  It was the first harvest.

  

We also have pea plants (no peas yet), carrots, chives, onions, TONS of blossoms: 30 on the cucumber, 2 on the watermelon, lots on the pepper plants, and lots more on the squash.  I have about 10 mini zucchini growing, 3 yellow squash and more basil than I can use.  I'm loving it!

Easter Easter Easter!

This year we went to my mom's house to color Easter eggs.  It was fun to get to spend time with my family and get creative.  My nephews came and it was a big party!

 It's adorable how much my nephews love their grandpa!

Here's my favorite egg this year.

Another one I did.  Sappy, I know...

My oldest Nephew had so much fun choosing what colors he was going to do.

My youngest nephew wanted to do what everyone else was doing.  I thought this was extra cute because he's such a wiggly worm it was amazing that he sat there so still :)

And here's my sweet sis-in-law with nephew #3 (on this side) on the way!  I LOVE newborns, so I'm excited for him to get here in July.

After coloring Easter eggs we hid plastic eggs outside for the little guys to find.  His basket is empty because as soon as he found an egg he would open it, eat it, and leave the shell on the grass.

 I helped Brigham count how many eggs he had found.  33!  That's the highest he's ever counted and I got to help (that's the teacher in me, getting excited about helping a little person count)

 My twin brothers live together and I figured they wouldn't get an Easter basket, so last night I made them a basket when I made mine and Tanner's.  I dropped them off on their door step last night.  i hope they got them and nobody stole them!

Posting all these pictures made me think of the Easter when Tanner and I were dating.  We colored eggs with my roommate Tessa and our friend Josh.

 

And here we are this year.  Do we look like we've changed much?