The last couple flights I have taken with Eric, they have had to inspect his bag, and not because they found a liquid. What may you ask would Eric carry that would need to get checked out? Well on you way home from Hawaii TSA could NOT figure out what was showing on the screen, they described it to us as a box with little chips or something in it. We thought for a moment, and realized they were talking about our Dominos.

Our flight to Seattle for Christmas, Erics bag had to be inspected again, why? Because he had a bag of Cheese in his carry on.

And finally our flight back to Wisconsin, Erics bag had to be checked again. Why? Because he had golf balls in his carry on.

Reminder to self- Eric packs interesting things in his carry on and will be stopped. Plan extra time. :)

I almost feel bad about not posting. But then I think, does anyone really care about whats going on? For those that do, her is whats going on in Madison.

After my trip home to Seattle, I left like a week later for another mini vacation to Salt Lake. Eric had a trip planned to Portland, and since I was just in Seattle, and a flight there would be expensive,  I found a super cheap flight to Salt Lake. It was FABULOUS! I went and actually worked at my work! Instead of on my couch in my pajamas. I got dressed, went into work, and when I needed someone, i just walked to their office instead of picking up my phone and calling them! It was WONDERFUL!  It did make me realize how much I missed my coworkers. Especially Bryndi. She is such and inspiration to me and she definitely helped fill my bucket while I was there. 

Also while I was in Utah, I got to see my best friend Brittany! I have a handful of friends that no matter how long it has been since we have seen each other, when we do finally get together, its like no time has passed at all. She is one of those friends. We went to lunch and dinner, and talked about everything under the sun. I miss having her just down the street from me.

I also was able to visit Donald (my brother) and Chelsea (my sister in law). Chelsea was gracious enough to let me crash at her house. I enjoyed every minute of it. I did however severly burn my thumb, it blistered, bled, and is still on my thumb. It may be a scar, or battle wound however you want to think of it.

After our trips, Eric and I drove down on Sunday to visit our friends the Cluffs in Nauvoo. I love going to Nauvoo, it has so many stories, and I have new insights every time I go. The Cluffs are also amazing and you can really feel the spirit in their home. Love them to death :)

After that, was THANKSGIVING!! Both families were in Saint George, Utah. It was too short of a weekend. We flew into Vegas and drove to Saint George. Not before we stopped at a McDonalds, and watched the guy behind the counter eat fries from a customers order. Yes we were all in shock!  Thanksgiving was exactly what I needed. I loved the vacation from Madison - I know i have had lots of Vacations away from Madison. There is a reason for that. It was great spending time with both families, and cousins.

Now I am just counting down the minutes until we can go home to Seattle. We will get in Friday night, and I cant wait!

Toria (Andrews Girlfriend), Andrew (My little brother), Alex (Andrew's best friend)

So last Saturday I went home to Seattle. The reason... I wanted to. My parents were supposed to come visit me in Madison, but that trip was postponed due to Grandma moving in with my parents. (Fingers crossed her house sells soon). My flight was a direct flight from Milwaukee to Seattle. Which I am super excited about, cause layovers suck. I have also decided that people with children and old slow people need to sit in the BACK of the plane. They take F-O-R-E-V-E-R to get on and off! And then once finally off the plane, they take the entire hallway! So i couldnt pass them. So after shoving some old people out of my way :) I made it out of the airport, and on my way home. My little brother Andrew had just turned 16, so we went out to celebrate at Maggianos.

Me and My Dad

Sunday was church, and it was super odd not to see all my friends there. I'm used to going home around a holiday, so all the kids that are in college or have graduated college are home visiting. So it was wierd not to see them. It was the primary program, which was absolutly ADORABLE! It was fun to see how big the kids I used to nanny have gotten!

Monday and Tuesday I spent with one of my best friends MICHELLE! I dont have a picture of me and her, but i do have a great picture with me and her two cute kids! I miss them all already :(

Thursday me and my mom went shopping. Didn't really think I would go home and not go shopping did you? We made a small dent in the checkbook at Nordstroms. I must say that one of my favorite purchases were these shoes.

How beautiful are they?! Sadly I had to have them shipped to me, but they will be here Thursday. Just in time for me to show them off at church!
Friday was more shopping and then we went to be best Pizza place in Bellevue... Pagliachis. yumm. Its my favorite :) Saturday my flight out was early. and as i have mentioned in another post, we had to have an emergency landing in Billings, Montana for 8 hours. Upside... I got a free round trip ticket! So i will be able to go back to Washington again soon!

Trips that are coming up:
UTAH November 9-14th!!
Saint George- Thanksgiving!
Seattle- CHRISTMAS!!
Then Cross your fingers that i go on a Cruise with my work in January!!

I clean. OBSESSIVELY. I get super excited about it too, I get excited about how I will spend hours deep cleaning the entire place.

Is that a sickness?

So- I left Seattle on Saturday, I was super sad to leave but i was missing Eric. So my flight left at 11:40 AM and was supposed to get in to Milwaukee at 5:30 PM, perfect to still get date night in! Sadly the flight had to make an emergency landing because the cockpit window cracked. So we landed in Billings, Montana... the only state where i dont have ANY phone service! It was awful. So i borrowed the phone of the lady sitting in front of me, so i could tell eric i was delayed. Then the news got worse. The pilot said another plane would come pick us up at 1030 that night. Yes that meant i had to sit in Billings with no phone for 8 hours! Ahhhhhh kill me now! It was awful. so finally broke down and paid 10 bucks for Wifi. So i spent the next 8 hours getting to know everyone on my flight. We watched football and football and more football. So its a good thing i like football.

The other flight came at 1030 and i got home at 230 Milwaukee. Eric was super excited :) Especially since we then had a 2 hour drive home! Yay!! Finally went to bed at 430. It was a long long day. But i was super excited to be home! In good news, i got a free round trip flight!

I dont know how to say this without sounding dumb, but driving home tonight was amazing. I had forgotten how much i LOVE driving. Blasting the music, singing on the top of my lungs, dancing in my seat. O and driving this!

Oh the Porsche.  I am sure it had a lot to do with why i fell in love with driving again, because its just so much fun! It was so much fun, i didn't want to go home. I wanted to keep driving all the way to North Bend. I know I sound weird, but I'm telling you, driving could be my new crack. (It will never replace my Diet Coke, so it would be more like my 2nd drug of choice.) Tonight was a good night. 

So moving to Madison has been quite an adjustment for me. It is really beautiful here but I no longer have a job to occupy my time. Sure I still work about 15 hours a week for Heritage Makers, still doing what I used to do just at a scaled down version. I love that I am still able to work for them. I love love LOVE everyone there! They have had such a huge impact on me. Especially Bryndi and Patti, so I was super grateful that Patti allowed me to stay on.

Ok, so back to time. Once I put in my hours at work, I get ready for the day... if I get ready for the day. I usually watch shows and movies. I know what you're thinking, what a tough life, and I'm not complaining, but once you run out of shows and movies, it gets SUPER boring.  I mean, I even resorted to broaden my show list to include Teen Mom, The Real Housewives of Orange County, and many many more shows that I am not proud of. *sigh*

In order to occupy my time, my friend Katie and I have decided to craft. We found all the 40% off coupons we could to Hobby Lobby and Michael's and went shopping. So far the craft number is up to 2. The BYU wreath, and a Paper Book Flower Wreath (pictures to come.)  Well I have really really really wanted a sewing machine for a long time. It just never made any sense to get one since I had school or a job. Well now that i dont have that, I got out my puppy dog eyes and approached the husband :)

HE GOT ME A SEWING MACHINE!!!

 

Isn't it beautiful? It is the Brother CP 7500 and it will be here Wednesday. I have started making a list of all the projects that will now occupy my time. The List includes:

Finishing Baby Quilt (not an announcment)

Pillows

Table Runner

Placemats

and then I ran out of ideas. So- if you have some ideas on what I could do with my new sewing machine i would LOVE to hear from you.

OK, so awhile ago I mentioned that i was staining my coffee table. It took me FOREVER. Not because it was hard, but i had no motivation to sit out in the summer humidity and work on the table. So it stayed in out Laundry Room on the floor for over 2 months. During a week in August when it would be cooler, i took the table out to my balcony and finished it! So here are the before, during, and after pictures! I really love the table now, and we got a super cute knob from Anthropology!

Before the Stain, i just put on the Chemical Remover. DONT get this on your skin, it BURNS

Close up of the Color before

After staining. Its called American Chestnut 

The knob

The table looks really nice, the only thing I need to do now is make some table coasters. I wont allow drinks on the coffee table, cause i dont want water rings. So all drinks are put on the floor.

Its getting cold here... last night the low was 31. Yep. Apparently there is no fall? It went from HOT to super cold. I went for a walk yesterday and the wind was super crisp and cold. I better start collecting winter clothes. Anyone have anything they suggest?

Last week was BYU's first game of the season. How did we watch it you may ask? Well we were in Nauvoo, so we had to get creative. BYU TV has an app for the iphone and ipad, and at 10:30 PM last saturday they reshowed the football game! So Eric, Bri and I sat on the couch in Nauvoo crowded around his ipad as we watched the game. None of us knew how the game would end, so it was an intense game, we were all screaming when Kyle Van Noy made the other side fumble, and then when he scooped up the ball for a touchdown!

This Saturday has been devoted to football. We went to the Wisconsin vs Oregon State Game. It was a Sea of RED. We sat on the 27th row! Eric had purchased a Wisconsin Shirt the week before, while I was wearing my Enjoy Receyceling shirt... it looks like it is supposed to say Enjoy Coca Cola :) Anywho, we TOTALLY creamed Oregon State. 35 to 0.

 

It was different being at a different stadium, especially since i didn't know the fight song, and no one around us sang the fight song, so i couldn't learn it. It seems that only the student section sang. I actually wanted to sit in the student section, that is until they started chanting "Eat Poo*"( *Word was changed to a more appropriate word) "F U"  anytime the other team was near their endzone. Having said that, I have never seen a SLOW wave like i didn't there. It was SO cool to watch. I wish i could have recorded it. 

After the game, we went to Costco and picked up some P.F. Changs, cause it was 20% off! However, it didn't taste very good. We were both a little disappointed. We have been watching football ever since. and now we are just counting down until BYU plays! We even changed our clothes to support. (Cant wear Red when watching BYU) 

 

So last night I made that BYU wreath! again, while watching football games. It has a Y in the middle of the wreath, if you look close you can see it. I made it out of 6 different ribbons, it was super easy and fun! Ok, well the game is starting! GO BYU!

So Erics family flew out to visit this last weekend and we had a BLAST! I will post the pictures later.  Sue, Chels and Bri got in Wednesday night. So Thursday we slept in, met Eric for Lunch at his work, toured a little, went to the FREE zoo in downtown Madison, and of course hit the mall. We all left the mall with some SUPER cute things! 

On Friday, Eric had to work, so I took the girls to The Dells where we spent the day at a waterpark. It was a great day! Our favorite "ride" by far was the wave pool. Not just any wave pool Poseidon's Rage. It is a 9 foot wave!

Mike finally arrived on Saturday morning. He took a red eye. Poor guy. As soon as he got here, we all piled into the car and drove to Nauvoo. Again i will post pictures later. We went on a Carriage Ride, had dinner and then went to a show. We also met up with the Cluffs! They had just moved out there about 3 weeks before. For those of you that dont know the Cluffs, they are from my home ward in Seattle. He works for the Church and now in charge of all of Nauvoo's historic sites. I am super excited that they live close to me now, but will miss them when i go visit Seattle. Hopefully there will be no more lonely weekends, cause next time Eric leaves, I will just go spend time with them!

 

We spent Saturday and Sunday in Nauvoo and Carthage and then drove home. I love being in Nauvoo, and thinking that I am walking where the pioneers walked. Its a crazy feeling. Especially when you are on the Trail of Hope. To walk up to the Mississippi River, and see how large this river is, and that it was frozen, and they had to cross it, and leave their homes and to turn around and see the Temple. It is an amazing experience.

Monday, was a holiday so Eric didn't have to work. So we went to his work and toured the campus. Eric works for a company called Epic. Each building has a different theme. Erics building is Dungeons and Dragons. Again, pictures to come. They have a treehouse building... that is built in a tree. An Indiana Jones hallway that makes jungle noises. So that tour took about 2 hours. We then drove out to Cave on the Mounds, and walked through a huge cave. 

Tuesday, Eric played hooky and went with us to the Cheese Store, where we sampled a TON of different cheeses, then we drove out to the Sausage Factor. After that we headed home, and Chels, Bri and I went shopping some more. 

They had to leave on Wednesday morning super early so we had to say our goodbyes that night. Eric and I were sad to see them leave, it was so much fun showing family around our new town of Madison!