Merry Christmas to you and yours, from me and mine.

Christmas is here! I'm so happy. I love Christmas and all the festivities that it brings.

Good food, good friends, and holiday cheer. Love it.

While deciding what to get people for Christmas this year, I had an idea to visit the local antique shop. Holy moly. I am so in love!! I have found so many down right COOL things there. So much history and so many stories. Thus, my new found love of all things vintage/old/antique. (That includes old people too, ya know! ;)

After the gifts have been given, I'll post pictures of them. They are fabulous!

I think I might have a stye. Yuck.

How do I get rid of it?!

(PS- Mine is not that bad yet... It just hurts!)

This one is for you, Sam. :)

It was brought to my attention I do not have sufficient pictures of my wedding on my blog - So here are just a few.... :)

Let there be lights!

So, if you're in the neighborhood, stop by and take a look at my house. Wow.
Clark Grizwald aint got nothin' on Mike.

Update

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful! It was really nice to be able to get together with the whole family and not worry about much.
...except for pie fillings.

Oh boy. Let me tell ya this story!

This year, my mom put me in charge of some of the pie fillings for Thanksgiving. No problem, right? Uh, not so much (for me, anyway). My cousin (who is a culinary genius) that was in charge of some of the other pie fillings and crusts, emailed me a recipe of hers and told me it was super easy... I was confident that I could do it... even though it had some ingredients I wasn't super acquainted with. Long story short - I ended up adding CUPS of flour instead of TEASPOONS of flour. Can you say DUH, BETH!!? I felt like an idiot when I realized what I did. (Now with help from Grama and Ma) We scrapped the whole batch (which I had already tripled) and started all over with a new recipe. Oy. What a learning experience.Patient little Grama helping with the re-mix of the fillings. (Which finally turned out, thank goodness!)

Grampa Schwartz - Bless his heart. We love him. :) (And Tucker-my brother's dog)

In other news - Mike and I had our second anniversary last week. ;) He sent me a dozed roses at work. I love it when he does that! It has been a wonderful two years. I love you, Mike! We had agreed that re-doing our kitchen would be our present to each other.... Which brings me to the next point.

Our kitchen! It's finally finished! I think it looks great. I'm so happy with it. (Thank you, dear!)Before...

After!

P.S.

Can I just tell you how excited I am for Thanksgiving!? Good food and family - what more do you need?

Family Pictures!

A couple of weeks ago, my side of the family had family pictures taken... We had then taken in Salt Lake at Wheeler Farms. This was Mike's first time ever doing family pictures, so it was quite an experience for him, I'm sure! ha ha We had a good time though. We even got to have the dogs in a couple of shots. I was so proud of our little ones - they were so well behaved and photogenic! :)

This on is my very favorite! ;)

THAT is trouble! ...Cute trouble, nonetheless.

Well, you missed it.

Our Halloween party was ROCKIN'! We all had so much fun. Thanks to everyone that came.

We kinda forgot to get a picture while every one was there, so this is most everyone... Frandsens - "School of Rock-ers"; Browns - Cool dude, and cute witch; Livingstons - Curt Cobaine and Courtney Love (my favorite!); Us - Popeye and Olive Oyl; Binghams - Treasure Troll and Army Guy

Ladies of the night -
Who picked that pose of mine? Geez. And I did it all night in every picture too. What a dork.

We swear they are fake, bishop! ha ha

Funny story about this can... We were all dressed up, ready to go, the party was started, and Jana said to Mike that he should have a can of spinach to complete his costume (I forgot to get that part...). So Mike looked in the pantry to grab a can of green beans and just write 'spinach' on the label, and lo and behold, we had a can of POPEYE's spinach! I never buy canned spinach! What a coincidence.

This is Mike's pumpkin. This was ALL FREEHAND. Seriously. He had fun carving it and making a mess of my house. :)

Halloween Party Invite

We are having a Halloween party... and this is an open invite to all those who read my blog! Call me or leave a comment (I'll try to check often) if you would like to come and I'll send ya all the details! Hope to see you there!

This is why I don't post offen.

Uh! I am so frustrated! I just spent probably about a half an hour composing a post, and when I went to post it, I got a message that said that there were errors with it. I am NOT technically inclined, and I have no flippin' idea what that error was, so I deleted the whole. dang. thing. Oy! I'm fuming mad right now. Stupid technology!

Kerry for Council

So my Dad (Kerry Schwartz) has decided to run for city council. I think he would be such a great councilmember! He has had a lot of experience and knows just what Lehi needs. ...So if you are a Lehi citizen, check his website out, and don't forget to vote (for him of course)! :)
Go Dad!!

www.schwartzforlehicitycouncil.com

...And one more thing (or two)

This is Fergie, our new puppy. She's a weener dog. SUPER cute and cuddley. We got her about three weeks ago - she is 11 weeks old now. I named her Ferige in honor of Ferd, a dog we (or Mike, I guess) had for years, but had put him down in December.
We love her. :) Welcome home, Fergie!

Alaska

So it only took a couple of weeks, but here are a couple of pictures from our cruise to Alaska! We (Mike and I, and his parents) had so much fun. Alaska is SO pretty - it has so much to offer (honestly, more than I thought). I had a hard time deciding which picutes to post because we took so many!

We left from Seattle, Washington and stopped in Juneau and Skagway, cruised through the Tracy Arm Fjord, stopped in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada (My favorite) and ended up in Seattle again. I really hope we get another chance to visit all of those places again - they were worth it.

Ranae and Mike

Over-looking Seattle

We went whale watching in Juneau. This was our guide/captain. I would have posted a picture of the whales, but you would need either a magnifying glass or really good eyesight. ha ha

Our ship -Rhapsody of the Seas - when we were docked in Skagway. So beautiful.

Here are the boys before they take their fishing trip in Skagway. Unfortunately, they didn't catch much to brag about. Mike did get to hook up with Dolly Parton on this little excursion, though! ha ha (*side note - Dolly Parton is a type of fish. ...One of the not-so-brag-worthy fish he caught.)

We rode the Yukon Rail and White Pass train up to the Canadian border while we were in Skagway. It was a very pretty ride. A lot of very dangerous, hard work went into building this railroad.

Tracy Arm Fjord Glacier. The ice was so cold it was litterally blue. Who knew old, dirty ice could be so pretty. ha ha
This is a piece of the glacier... This is the blue that I was talking about. So amazing.

There was a rock wall on the ship - and Mike just so happened to be walking by as they were starting a timed competition. He decided to sign up - spur of the moment- and he WON! Good job, Mike!

At Butchart Gardens. There were so many different kinds of flowers - but this was my very favorite. Mike said it looks like someone took an ice cream scoop and scooped the middle right out. :)

Mike and Bear (my father-in-law) just LOVED the gardens!

Yes, he's a high roller.

This is Luis. He was our assistant waiter for our formal dinners. It was really hard to say goodbye. He called us "his family."

-HI LUIS!! ;)-

Here we are - Bastu (our head waiter), Bear, Me, Mike, Luis and Ranae - on the last night. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone. We had all become such good friends by the end of the week.

Utah State HOG Rally

HOG RALLY!! This weekend was the State HOG Rally. We had a lot of fun - parties, poker, games, tours, friends, family... What a trip.
Here are just a few pictures of the highlights of the trip - I couldn't possibly put them all on, there were so many good ones.

This is just a couple of the bikes when we were stopped at Promintory Point.

For the second year in a row, Mike took first place with his bike. :) Proud Daddy right here!


My FAVORITE picture of the whole weekend. :)

Portland, Oregon!

So I know that it was like 2 whole months ago, but I never posted about Oregon. I LOOOOOOOVVVVEEED IT!!!!! We had a blast!! It was quite a quick trip, but I fell in LOVE. Oregon is so amazing. I want to live there someday.

How can this not make you smile? Such a goof.

The twins adore Mike. :)

The kids at the Portland temple.

On our way home, we stopped by Multnomah Falls. These pictures don't even do this waterfall justice. It was breathtaking! None of us wanted to leave, we were having so much fun.

I know that I have bragged a lot about my adorable siblings, but I love Michael in this picture. So cute. Like a little tourist. :)

I'm so glad we got the chance to see Oregon. It was an awesome vacation. (Thanks for getting married, Cassie! ha ha)