March: The Month of Dates Part I

In March we had a grand old time with lots of fun activities and outings. To begin the month, I met up with Kerstin and Alisha (no husbands this time), for a much needed pedicure at Nails & Spa Too in Highland. I love that place. They do a great job and the place is beautiful. It’s all fancy and elegant inside. Love it! I haven’t gotten too many pedicures in my lifetime, but that has been my favorite place so far. After our relaxing pedicures, we had lunch at Blue Lemon. We had a good time eating delicious food and having in-depth conversations on the realities of life. It’s always a good time with these girls. Love them!

Another date (including Jason this time) was with our friends Mike and Kaitlyn. We always have a great time with these guys. We met up at Texas Roadhouse for dinner. Charlie seems to be getting a little better with all of the noise there. After we went there the last time and Charlie had such a difficult time, we vowed we would never take him there on a weekend again...but when we were invited by Mike and Kate...we caved in, as the rolls were calling our names. I’m glad we went and gave Charlie the chance to “come around” to Texas Roadhouse. For dessert, we went over to the delicious Yogurtland.

One Friday afternoon, Nancy invited Charlie and I to a lunch and visit. Lucky for us, Jason finished work early that day so he was able to come along. We met up with Nancy at Los Hermanos, thanks to her special deals card, and then headed back to our place to visit for awhile until Charlie went down for his nap. We are so lucky to have so many family and friends nearby!

Speaking of nearby family...I have started a general routine of going to visit my Mom each week on Wednesdays. She is working part-time at the Jr. High School and has Wednesdays off, so Charlie and I head up to Draper to spend time with her. As part of our routine, I always go in my workout clothes and Mom and I take turns doing exercises on their new Total-Body Gym machine. That thing is a great machine! You are able to do so many different things, the range of motion is great, and it only takes up the space of a bench. Now that we don’t have gym memberships anymore, this is a great alternative (well, I guess it would be great if we had it in our own home). My mom and I will exercise on the machine, feed Charlie and put him down for a nap, and then workout to one of her dance/aerobic videos. It’s a selection between a video by Paula Abdul, Belly Blast, or a Denise Austin video. Once you get passed the awkward, self-conscious, humiliating part of working out to these videos, it is actually pretty fun and a great workout. We might miss a week here and there, but it has been such a fun thing to share with my mom and a great chance for her to spend time with her grandbaby.

The weekend of St.Patrick’s Day was a big weekend for us. It was jam-packed with fun activities. Saturday afternoon, I met up with my mom and sisters for kind of a “craft day”. Spring was fast approaching, the weather was getting nice, and Pinterest was booming with lots of spring craft ideas. My “Let It Snow” door decor wasn’t cutting it anymore, so I wanted to replace it with a spring wreath. I didn’t want to take on this craft alone, so I offered to make a girl’s day out of it with my mom and sisters. The hardest part was picking out the flowers! We went to Joanne’s, to Michael’s, and back to Joanne’s until we finally decided on what we wanted. Way too many cool flowers to choose from, and then when you add the element of wanting to choose ones that are on sale, and you are stuck there debating for a long time. With flowers in hand, we went back to my mom’s house to finally assemble our wreaths. My mom had a few scrap flowers that we were able to incorporate into our wreaths as well as some live pussy-willows from her own pussy-willow plant. They started blooming the week before, and she was nice enough to go out and cut some for us. She cut a little extra, so I was able to bring some home for a pretty table arrangement as well. The next hardest part was deciding how to arrange the flowers on the wreath, and once you had them how you liked them, you had to take them all off and assemble them again...this time gluing them into place. It ended up being just me and Camry actually making wreaths. My mom and Kimberly helped us put them together, but did not make their own since Kimberly will be leaving on a mission within the next few months (she just completed her final stake interview last Sunday), and my mom already has enough spring decor. It was nice having the extra hands helping with the gluing. The actual making of the wreaths was such a piece of cake. Once the decisions were made, the project was a sinch! And I’m so glad we did it because they turned out great! They are so beautiful and unique! Once I got home, I hung the wreath on the door with pride. 

Oh yeah...I got bangs! I really needed a change!

Mom's pussy-willows at home

Shortly after finishing the wreaths, Jason drove up to Draper with Charlie. My parents accepted the request to tend Charlie while Jason and I went to the Salt Lake Real game. Thanks to an awesome Christmas present from Amy Stallings, we had free tickets to the game (Pass of all Passes rocks!). The part that didn’t “rock” was waiting in line for over an hour at the stadium that morning (before meeting up with Mom and sisters), just to find out they ran out of tickets for that day about 15 minutes before I reached the window. I heard people saying they were giving out raincheck tickets, so I figured I might as well stay and get those so my morning wasn’t a complete waste. When I got to the window, we lucked out because they still had two seats available today in an area that was partially obstructed. I didn’t mind, so I took the tickets! I didn’t know if we would get a chance to make it back for another game. Anyways, we had a blast at the game. On our way up to our seats, we say Jason’s friend and business partner, John, sitting right next to the balcony. There were two empty seats right next to them. We decided to join him and sit there until someone came to claim the seats. No one came until about ten minutes into the second half! Not bad, I would say! When we got up to our real seats, the “partial-obstruction” was pretty pathetic. Jason had to watch the game through bars on a railing...and his seat was pretty much blocking a walk-way...so anytime someone wanted to get by, he would have to stand up for them. Pretty lame. But at least we spent most of the game sitting in awesome seats! And at least we were able to go to that game at all! A fun memory!

A small glimpse of the morning line...after already being there for 30 minutes

Jason's "partially-obstructed" view

After the soccer game, our night wasn’t over. My dad rented Skyfall, and so we watched it downstairs on the big projector. Jason and I hadn’t seen it yet so we were super excited! It is probably the best bond movie yet! We really enjoyed it.

Charlie and I stayed the night at my parents, and Jason headed home that night since he had early morning meetings and meetings after church. Charlie and I went to church with my family, and afterwards, Jason returned for our special St. Patty’s Day dinner and cruise kick-off! As our Christmas 2013 present, my parents are taking my family on a Disney Cruise to the Caribbean! We are so excited! They loved the cruise they went on last November so much that they wanted to bring the family next time! Originally, the plan was to go over Christmas, but since Kimberly is planning to leave on her mission this summer, they decided to bump the dates up. This works perfectly for me and Jason because with the change, we are able to have Charlie stay behind with Grandma and Grandpa Gruber! For our cruise kick-off, we got excited by watching videos and looking at pictures of my parent’s cruise. We then decided on the excursions we were going to go on at the different ports. Man the list was huge! And with eight of us, it was hard to narrow down. But we did it, and we are so excited! It is going to be an amazing family trip!

Our special GREEN St. Patrick's Day dinner

St. Patty decor at our apartment