My boyfriend is awesome

I've been at my parents house in ID this last week before Christmas and I go home on Christmas Day. So Dave and I aren't going to be able to spend Christmas Day together, because he left for his parents house in CT today. So he sent me something special to my parents house just to let me know he was thinking of me. He had been planning it for a week ahead of time, too, which is awesome! He was so sneaky, asking me if I liked pears, which I thought he was just asking me for the sake of asking me. I thought maybe someone at work was offering them to him and he wanted to make sure I liked them too. Nope, he was secretly planning to send me some.


He sent me a Harry and David fruit and nut gift tower. The bottom layer has their Royal Riviera® Pears, the next up has Crisp Mountain Apples, the next up has Mixed Nuts, the next up has Chocolate Truffles and the very top one has Bing Cherry Chocolates. It was go good. The chocolates were off the chain and the pears were so juicy and fragrant. I feel like I work for Harry and David now in my description, but I really don't. The only props that are going out here are to Dave for getting me this gift. It was a great gift.

How many of you are there?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 2,583 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Thanksgiving

was a blast! We flew in to SLC Thurs morning and came back Tues morning. In that time we ate good food, met a TV star, hung out with my nieces and nephews and sister and parents, got to introduce Dave to more family and some college friends, and it was just a lot of fun.

We saw David Boreanaz AKA Angel, at the car rental return when we were picking up our car. I just couldn't decide if that was really him or not and while I was trying to make up my mind, he was unpacking his car. By the time I finally decided it really was him, he was on his way back to the terminal, but I made Dave go over and talk to him. But he didn't want to do autographs, cause he had to catch a flight with his dog, and he probably just didn't want to be bothered. But he wasn't rude, so that was cool.

But anyway, here are some of the pictures from our trip. I'm going to try to do this all in order...


My baby with my cousins baby.









This is the view from my aunt's house in Riverton, UT













This is in Provo, near BYU. There's a great view from the mountain.












These are some views of Pocatello, where I had lived for 5 years.





























This is at my old campus, Idaho State University.
















This is in Pocatello when we were on our way back to UT. It started snowing that afternoon. Our first snow this year was in Idaho.





















And this is in Orem having dinner with one of my good college friends Tiffany.

Is it too early for Christmas music?

I'm going to go with NO it’s not too early. I'm listening to some at work right now. Granted, it's not all Jingle Bells and the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. There's more instrumental and Trans-Siberian Orchestra but there's also some Bing Crosby and Mariah Carey. What can I say? I’m feeling Christmasy. I can’t wait to decorate in Christmas décor and put up Christmas lights. And I can't wait to go to Utah for Thanksgiving. Then when I get home, my boo will let me decorate for Christmas. But not until then. But this Thurs we're leaving to go to Utah and Idaho. We'll be in Utah until Sun, then we're driving up 3 hours to Pocatello to spend a couple days with some friends, have Chinese, have some pizza bombs, and I can show Dave my college town. I'm really excited about that. And I'm excited for my friends to meet him. Then Mon we'll come back down to Utah, have dinner with another college friend, and then Tues morning we leave at 6 am. Then we'll be at home chilling, and hopefully decorating!

Who Knows Me Best

Create your own friendquiz here

Sorry Kristen

you didn't post it, so I did.
so funny.

Minnehaha Falls

We went to Minnehaha Park on Friday evening to see the waterfall. We were both able to leave work early and decided to take advantage of that so I loaded up Camille (Dave's dog) in the truck and we went and picked Dave up and drove over to the park. It's amazing that this waterfall is right in the middle of this park, in the middle of town. You'd never know it just driving by because you go down stairs to get to it. It was so pretty. So we went down to see it and I got to take some pics. I really like silhouettey kind of pictures, just tree branches up against the sky, etc, as you'll see. There were a few other people down there while we were, so we asked a nice random stranger to take our picture. I think it turned out well :)




I just love these pictures.





These are the stairs we did. There were lots!





It was just such a pretty evening, a little chilly, but well worth it.











And this one is my favorite tree picture.

Central time vs Phoenix - Live Sunday night

So I'm a little worried about the time change taking place this Sunday. We fall back an hour. And the reason why I'm worried: I'm lazy. Yup, that's it. That’s the main reason I can’t seem to make it in to work before 10 am these days, and when I say before 10, I really mean 10:45. But I do start my day by working from home, so although I’m not in the office, I am working… most of the time. So the problem is that the time change is happening this weekend and then Phoenix will only be 1 hour behind me instead of 2. And unless I want to continue staying in the office til 7 or later, I have to start going in from 9-6, which still keeps me on 8-5 Phoenix time, which keeps me nSync with my boss and my customers. It’s been hard getting off at 7 at night, cause by the time I get home I’m tired and if there are any errands that I need to run after work, I’m screwed! I don’t get home til after 8 a lot of times and then I’m trying to get dinner started. Monday I didn’t get started on dinner until almost 9 and it was a bad night because of it. So I’m looking forward to being home earlier. But I am not looking forward to getting up earlier! I cannot seem to wake up these days. Like yesterday I was awake at 4:30am, went back to sleep around 5 and then was up again around 7 and then back to sleep and didn’t wake up until 9:30. How am I supposed to get in to work at 10 if I’m waking up at 9:30? And don’t ask me what happened to my alarm clock, cause I have no idea why it didn’t go off. So I don’t know how I’m going to do it. And it really is cause I’m lazy and just can’t drag my butt out of bed!! The other problem is TNT in the morning and TV in the bedroom. There are 2 episodes of Charmed (I’m an addict) and 2 episodes of ER (which I've never watched until this month and now can’t get enough of) back to back. So 4 damn hours of good shows. I never can watch all 4 cause I’m not up in time. But I can watch 2 ½ sometimes!!! Anyway, I’m afraid I’m just too lazy in the mornings for my own good. And not to mention the bed is just too dang soft and comfortable and I can’t pry myself out of it. So I'm blaming it on the bed and TNT.

Survey with a Twist

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current street name)
Pepper Hinton

2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (favorite ice cream flavour, favorite cookie)
Mocha Chocolate Chip

3. YOUR "FLY Guy/Girl" NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name)
S Wil

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Black Cat

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Dawn Pocatello

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, last 3 letters of mom's maiden name)
Wil Sa Ght

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink)
Blue Diet Pepsi

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)
Rex Wallace

9. STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne)
Happy

10. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother & father's middle name)
Anne Edward

Hi Dad!!!!

Could more people have been shot in the head?

The Departed. What is up with all the people getting shot in the head? I wish I had been keeping count from the beginning. I can think of at least 7 poor souls who were shot in the head at point blank range, but I'm sure I missed some.

I liked the story, I liked the big names. I kept trying to figure out who the psychologist was, I was thinking she was Claire Forlani but good ol' imdb.com confirmed that it is Vera Farmiga, who looks incredibly like Claire Forlani. Turns out she's not her.

So the movie was good, but a little too much violence for my non-violence liking taste. But what was up with everyone getting shot in the head? Good hell, Martin!

It's too early for snow!

Can you believe that??!? there have been snow flurries this week. It's too early for snow! It's October! And it's not even the end of October. Yes, it's Minnesota, but still, it's too early for snow!









Good thing I look so cute in my pea coat and scarf.

Weekends in MN

This weekend was just awesome. We had so much fun and did a lot of outdoorsy things. We went to a drive in on Friday night. So much fun!! We saw Open Season with Ashton Kutcher and Martin Lawrence. Pretty funny. Madagascar was better, but it was pretty good. We also saw Gridiron Gang. I liked that a lot. The Rock has become a pretty good actor in my book. The Covenant was also playing, but since we had already seen it and it was getting close to midnight, we just decided to go home. But it was a lot of fun. It was a $7 admission, which we could deal with considering we normally pay $6 for a matinee and always see 2 movies (cause we're crazy risky like that and always sneak into a second movie) so no big deal. We had a picnic in the truck. We got a variety bucket from KFC and some sides and brought a cooler with ice and soda and we brought plates and silverware and had a straight up feast in the truck with the sides lining the dashboard. It was so much fun.

Then Saturday we went to an apple orchard. Yes, an actual apple orchard where you go pick your own apples, drink apple cider, take a hay ride, go through a corn maze, pick raspberries, pick pumpkins, etc. We almost did the corn maze then decided against it. It was $7 per person, and we figured we'd rather get into the orchard and pick us some fruit! So we picked some raspberries. The orchard was only a few miles away from my apartment and it was packed. There were so many people there. It was crazy busy but it was so much fun! I really wanted to pick raspberries, not so much with the apples. As soon as I saw they had raspberries, I wanted those instead. And you'll notice we're actually picking our own raspberries. They had 2 huge fields with rows and rows of raspberries. I love them! Dave doesn't care for them, but he had a good time picking them with me. I was eating almost as many as I was picking, and Mmmm Mmmmm MMMMMmmmm were they tasty!! Dave became a pro at picking the perfect raspberries. And I became an expert at eating them :) And since we've been home, I've continued to eat them and had them on my cereal this morning. I would love to make some raspberry jam, but I didn't get enough and I have never made it. So I'll resort to just eating the ones we picked.

The other part of it being such a fun day was how beautiful it was. It was windy, but it was just so beautiful!! Probably close to 76 or so, and sunny. And with all the fall colors changing, it really made for a wonderful afternoon. I loved taking pictures when we were on the hayride. We also drove into Wisconsin after the apple orchard because a gal at work had mentioned to me just how beutiful a drive it is heading along on Hwy 35. It goes right along the Mississippi river and is very pretty. Well I went south instead of east and wound up on a different highway and never quite made it to Hwy 35 and the drive down, but it was still so pretty on the drive we were on. I was kind of going off some printed mapquest maps that were not extremley detailed but was good enough to recognize some of the junctions with other highways and to make it to the bigger towns on the highway we were on. We wound up in Red Wing, WI, where the shoe company is located and finally saw a sign for Hwy 35 and so we took that back home. But by then the sun was setting so we weren't able to really appreciate the beauty of it, but we could still tell how pretty it would be during the afternoon. So we'll go again and take some actual pictures of WI next time.





Then today we took Camille (my step-dog :) ) to a dog park a few miles away. I didn't have my digital camera with me, but I had my cell phone so took a lot of pictures using my cell phone. I got a new phone recently and it has a much bigger screen to take and view pictures. And the resolution is pretty good for a cell phone camera. So these pictures are from today off my cell phone.






























LAST WEEKEND:

Last weekend Dave and I did a walk for the American Diabetes Association. We got up really early and went over to the General Mills campus (about 25 miles west of us) and did a 3 mile walk on a beautiful day as well. It took us about 50 minutes to do the 3 mile and boy was my booty sore afterwards!! But it was so worth it. Dave raised $175 and I raised $60, which was awesome considering this was my first diabetes walk. Then since we were in that part of town we wandered over to the area of Minneapolis that has like 5 very large lakes right in the middle of town. So we went over to Lake Calhoun and drove around the lake, enjoying people watching, looking at the homes that outlined the lake and just having a good time being out and enjoying how beautiful it was. Then we drove around Lake Harriet and got out and walked around. There was a deck that went out into the lake a little ways, so I took out the camera to take some pictures.