For the weekend

The first snowfall of the season can be checked off the list! And on that note, I'm settling in for a cozy, warm, productive, stay-at-home-and-drink-hot-chocolate sort of weekend.

I will admit right now: I'm going to start putting up my Christmas decorations. Before you shake a finger at me, I'll just throw it out there that I normally wait until the day after Thanksgiving to decorate for Christmas... but I'm supposed to have a baby that weekend. I don't think I'll want to worry about decorations when I have a newborn. I pretty sure that's a legitimate excuse, so now I'm going to spend my weekend listening to dear Michael Buble's Christmas CD and adding a little holiday cheer to our home decor. And I will enjoy it.

Meanwhile, here are some posts for your personal weekend reading:

• One mom's thoughts on when a child's sickness messes up holiday plans (and that lamb costume is too cute!)
• Looking at this gorgeous quilt makes me want to be crafty and make my own
• This blogger put together a collection of free Christmas printables and I'm obsessed
• I was really intrigued by this post about the stigma of watching R-rated movies in the LDS church. Any thoughts from my Mormon readers?

Babymoon! Because I'm NOT motivated!

It's official.

My motivation to do anything has gone out the window. I don't even have the famous preggo lady "nesting instinct" driving me to get things done. I just want to sit, eat food, read books, watch tv shows, and take naps. It was a struggle getting myself to make this blog post, for crying out loud!

That being said... the mini vacation we had this past weekend was a nice break from things. Even if it wasn't particularly relaxing (let's face it... vacations are never as relaxing as we expect them to be) it was still great to have a change of pace.

Doug works for an awesome company and they had a company retreat this past weekend up in Park City. Since Doug is crazy busy and I have a fair bit going on myself, we decided that this retreat would double as our "babymoon" - because goodness knows we're probably not going to take any other trips between now and baby's arrival.

I won't go through all the details... but I will say that I completely disregarded the rules about under-cooked meat during pregnancy and had a medium-rare filet mignon for dinner. No regrets. It was delicious and baby still seems perfectly healthy. I also took home handfuls of the pumpkin kisses that were covering the dinner tables.

Park City, you're always good to us. And the pretty fall foliage was a definite bonus. AND I really enjoyed going to that 5-star spa for a 50 minute foot/calf massage. My feet really needed it.

Oh... and Happy Halloween, everyone.

Fall decor, please and thank you

I've finally been cracking down on cleaning. Because my apartment is (finally) back to "company-ready" status, I've allowed myself to put up a framed autumn word print, some handmade yarn-ball acorns, a "happy fall" pennant banner, and even an extremely cute thick wicker pumpkin, in addition to my autumn floral arrangement I put out last weekend. I will withhold my actual Halloween decorations until October is actually here. It's taking some restraint though, people, let me tell ya. Now I just need to go buy a bunch of those cute, mini pumpkins and I'll be good to go!

A cleaner apartment and fall decorations, combined with going to lunch with my Grandparents today before they head off to Winter Quarters, Nebraska for a 1.5 year mission for my church, made a good Saturday. And I didn't touch my homework. The only assignment I think I have is reading Antigone... that's not too complicated.

Fall is here to stay. It's about time! Happy Fall, everyone!

Weekly Wishes 9.22

Next week marks the beginning of my favorite month! October, you are soooo close... But I suppose I should focus on the here-and-now.

I had a pretty good weekend, filled with a documentary about camels and their owners, wading in the pool in the BYU statue garden, briefly holding my old roommate's little baby, going to see an awesome dance concert, watching the BYU/UoU rivalry game (we lost, but it was still fun to watch it), and trying to sleep as much as possible because my throat started feeling sore and I want to prevent a full-out cold. So far, I've been mostly successful. We watched Mulan last night... such a good movie. Did you know I've made a sandwich for Donny Osmond? True story. Except I want to call it a MANwich because every time I think of Donny Osmond, I think "Be a man! We must be swift as the coursing riverrrrr..."

Time to report on weekly goals!

And check out these flowers that were blooming by the statue garden pool. What is this, spring?! They're pretty though...

Last Week
I wanted to post on my blog more. Success! (I posted 2 times more than the previous week!)
I wanted to make a fall date list with my husband. Nope. But it's coming! Fall just barely started, anyways.
Finally, I wanted to keep cleaning the apartment. I wish I could say I did... but... school. Life. And laziness.

This Week
Date list! Make that dang fall date list!
Find ways to serve my husband. Return and report.
Keep doing better on blogging. 3 posts during the week, at a minimum. And this weekly wishes post doesn't count!

Ending the hiatus (and banana bites)

Pardon my blog hiatus. I'm just busy enjoying the last of my school-free summer hours (because BYU is strange and we don't start classes until this Tuesday. No complaints here, though).

Doug and I have been Harry Potter Marathon-ing it up over here (currently on movie 6) and I still need to make my snickerdoodle cookies sometime tomorrow. In the mean time, I've been snacking down on these awesome semi-but-not-really-healthy treats that I have affectionately termed "banana bites".

I originally got the idea from Pinterest (here) but I decided to flip things up a little. These little beauties are filled with Nutella and coated in melted peanut butter chips. The original ones on Pinterest are filled with peanut butter and coated in melted dark chocolate chips (although I used semi-sweet for mine).

I'm not going to lie... I think I like the super chocolaty ones a bit more. Go figure, I'm a chocoholic. The best part? Doug is not a fan of frozen bananas, so I got the whole batch to myself. I ate over half of them before I remembered I needed to take pictures.

In case you want to make them... you have to freeze the bananas and their filling first (about 1 hour) and THEN dip them in the melted coating. Otherwise they'll get mushy. And once you take the bananas out of the freezer to dip them you need to work fast because the bananas defrost quickly and the melted coating hardens quicker than you expect. Then just pop them back in the freezer again for a while and they're ready to eat!


Alrighty, it's back to the magical world of Harry now.

Must. Finish. Before. School. Starts.

12 hours

I spent most of my waking hours in the Fine Arts Center here at my college yesterday.

12 hours, to be precise.

Yes, on a Saturday.

But it's worth it when I see the progress that "A Wrinkle in Time" is making, and see the awesome choreography they're learning in "Seussical the Musical".

This is a small "experimental theatre" that we do student-directed projects in.

And the picture's a bit blurry, but the guy in the center is lifting a girl over his head and spinning.

Oh, so exciting.

They're all having so much fun, and half of them are just as tired, if not more tired than me.

Theatre does that to ya.

A Wrinkle in Time opens in less than two weeks! We start tech rehearsals in the De Jong Concert Hall on Tuesday. It will be over before I know it, I'm sure.

Happy Sunday to everyone!

For the Weekend

I love it when I come out of the Provo temple and see a sight like this.
There's nothing like a glistening water fountain with a mountain sunset in the background.

This valley can be so beautiful, and it makes me excited to think about spring. I have never been in Utah during the month of May (I'm usually home in California during that month) and so this will be my very first time seeing Provo during May. The hubs tells me that it's a pretty great month - the weather isn't too hot yet, and the world still feels like spring. Sounds like my kind of weather.

In other news, I competed in DanceSport this weekend. My partner and I got all the way to quarterfinals for our Standard Ballroom competition, which is really saying something because my partner has never done ballroom before in his life until this semester. He's off to a fairly good start, if I do say so myself. It's my fourth time competing in DanceSport, and it doesn't get old.

The best part about DanceSport? Getting to wear long, flowing skirts, putting on bright red lipstick, and then taking camera-phone pictures in the mirror of a locker room. Yep. That's how I roll.

It's too bad that they don't let the non-pro college competitors wear glittery costumes... I could have some fun with those. Anything with rhinestones = perfect for ballroom dancing.

The only downside to DanceSport is that I lose sleep and all the practicing wears me out. Fingers crossed that I get more sleep this week than last week!

On another note... I made a cake for my hubby's birthday this weekend. There is only a little bit of it left, along with some mint ice cream in the freezer, and they are both calling to me. I don't think I can resist much longer. I mean... it's chocolate cake. Chocolate!

Enough said.

A Belated Weekend Update

I know, I know. All of the "what I did on my 3-day weekend" posts have already been posted. Except mine. Because I'm actually trying to not procrastinate my school work for once, and so my blog is suffering.

Anyways...

I got to see The Phantom of the Opera on Friday night! It was awesome!!!! And it was a BYU production. My college is just that cool. Two things: first, the guy who played Phantom should just hurry up and go to Broadway already. His voice is amazing. Second, the guy who played Raoul (I'm friends with him!) is sooooo short, but he is so good at hiding his Australian accent. You couldn't even tell he's an Aussie. Honestly.

The 3-day weekend was also filled with two baby showers, one of which was for my sister-in-law! She's due in a little over a month. I'm going to be an auntie! I cannot wait to meet my first nephew.

Also... owl-themed baby showers? So cute!

There was a make-your-own Cafe Rio chicken salad bar.
For those of you who don't live in Utah and have never tasted Cafe Rio... I pity you.
Their dressing is amazing.
I was one happy auntie-to-be.

It was a busy, busy Saturday... and a very busy Monday filled with rehearsals for the play I am stage manager for... but it was still an enjoyable 3-day weekend.

New goal: Don't neglect my blog so much.