Thanksgiving 2011

I love Thanksgiving.  As much as I love Christmas, I really do like to take the time to appreciate all the blessings I have in my life.  I try to be thankful all the time, but I especially like to when it's Thanksgiving.  I have way too many things to list to be thankful for, but some favorites that come to mind start with this guy...

Don't mind my awkward "brotherly" hug

who makes life so grand.  We're still in the newlywed phase and there's still days when I have watery eyes and tears stream down my face when I have to leave him and go to work ha ha.  I'm so grateful for those feelings and our awesome relationship.  I'm perfectly happy whenever we're together whether it's grocery shopping or a fun adventure.

I'm teaching a lesson on personal revelation in Relief Society on Sunday and it's brought to mind a lot of experiences I've had.  I'm grateful for personal revelation because without it I probably wouldn't have chosen to marry Bryce in the temple, chosen to go to Weber and study nursing, learned the gospel is true and have a strong testimony, avoid dangerous situations, and made many other choices that have led me along a path that so far has brought me so much happiness.  I have an awesome family I'm excited to spend eternity with.  I have two jobs that I love with co-workers that are so fun.  I'm just about to graduate and am so excited!  I was truly blessed to have survived the past 5 1/2 years.  I'm just full of gratitude for life right now and I love having mushy gushy feelings about it all.  I am so looking forward to this holiday season and I'm sure I'll have some pics to share when it's over!  And it always goes by way too fast so it will be time again before I know it.  Happy Holidays!    

October is Over

Man I loved October this year!  I thought it was great weather wise and fun to have a little bit of a fall season for once.  When I think of our October I think of football, movies, pumpkins, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (too many), family, and Halloween.  P.S. I am 4 weeks away from graduation so I'm starting to not think about school anymore so it's not included in the month of October :)

Ya Utes!  Stop loosing :)

We went to several football games including some at the U and the traditional Weber vs ISU game.  I don't have confusion as far as where my loyalties lie, there is just a lot of stipulation.  If I go to a U game, I cheer for the Utes.  Obviously because of my cute gloves, hat, sweatshirt, and matching leg warmers, duh.  And the MUSS is out of control and you can't help but have energy.  I cheer for Weber, unless they are playing ISU and I'm sitting next to my Grandma and Grandpa who bring awesome treats and buy me popcorn and drinks, again, duh.  However, if Weber was playing the U I would be decked out in purple.  So hopefully that clears everything up for you :)

Weber vs ISU

The girls

Next it was time for soup in soup bowls as well as carving pumpkins.  This year the Shermans had us over and we had such a great time!  I was able to carve my pumpkin while Bryce took all of the guts out that make your arms super itchy and gross.  Our Batman symbol turned out great!  

Finally it was time to dress up for Halloween.  I love wearing costumes!  Always have and always will.  Bryce stole the show with Batman, but everyone was nice and said I was cute in my Robin costume.  We trick or treated w/ our nephews at Grandpa's office and visited with our families.  We went to a party and handed out candy to trick-or-treaters on Halloween.  A successful holiday in my book!

Thanksgiving is up next, which I'm mildly excited for, I don't know why but this holiday never really gets me too worked up.  It's the month of December and all of the parties, graduation, and CHRISTMAS that has me giddy!  All else is going well.  I hope you have a Nifty November!  From, Mrs. B

26.2 - Marathon Relay!

September 10 came mighty fast this year...and that's because we all postponed getting ready for race day!  Ha ha, but our team all came out okay.  We had the same team as last year...my hubby, dad, sister, BIL, and myself.  We each run 5.2 miles totaling up to the daunting marathon mileage of 26.2!  It's much easier to do 1/5 of one.  Dad was our first runner so Linds and I were there to support him at the starting line...

Bright and early!  But dad is happy and ready to go

I wish you could see my dad's face instead of a head of glowing fire ha ha, but he was doing so awesome at mile 4!

Dad was our 2nd fastest runner...and he was STILL looking fresh!

Lindsay ran 2nd and I think this picture was after she finished.  She ran faster than ever as well.  Proud of my baby sister!  

I was ready to go waiting for Bryce to come in as our 3rd runner.  I was SO worried about him!  When he passed on mile 4 he looked like he was ready to pass out.  He got sick with the flu on Friday and he was so weak and sick the day of the race.  I made my mom, the nurse, promise to tend to him while I was away!

He was so happy to be done and I was so happy to take the baton away from him!  Yay Team Bagley!

A picture of our future teammate.  We'll need someone in about 12 years when my dad is 60!

Here's a picture of the team while I was running.  It's actually great  Bryce 's face is red.  When I saw him running he was death grey colored...and he's smiling too so he recovered fast.

Part of the reason Bryce was so tired during the race was because around mile 2 there is a BEAST of a hill and he saw this woman at the base who was trying to push her mentally/physically challenged child up the hill in a wheelchair.  She was at a dead stop and Bryce said she looked like she was about to burst into tears and totally discouraged.  He pushed her son up the hill and thought his lungs were going to explode at the top.  She was so grateful that she found him after she finished and came to hug him and almost cried again!  I'm proud of my husband for taking this opportunity to serve.  It's what life is all about!

If you haven't caught this infamous picture on facebook already...I promised my "fans" to do a trick like I did last year so my dad had the camera ready.  He got the picture at the perfect time obviously and I was lovin it!

Just some random pics...showing off my muscles w/ pops

Lindsay bought our team matching sweat bands.  It was actually very helpful in spotting our teammates as they came around the corner!

Of course our mom was there to cheer us on!

This was when I came back and Matt, our anchor, was out running.  We were watching the boys.

Lindsay used her height to catch a teddy bear they threw to the crowd.  She and Luke were new friends so she decided to give it to him.

Brosephs - Matt was our fastest runner as usual.  That's why we keep him around!

This was our 2nd shot at a team picture because dad had to take off early.  Way to go team!  Here's to getting ready for next year...hopefully sooner rather than later!  It's fun to have this healthy tradition with our family.

Catch up!

Wow, 2 months have come and gone since I've blogged.  While summer was fun and busy, we've moved on to school time being crazy and busy.  Bryce is in school full time and working full time running Utahskis.com.  I'm very proud of him!  Meanwhile I'm in my last semester of the BSN program, I decided to throw an honors project in there somewhere as well.  I'm still working at Hoopes part-time and I've started my dream job at my dream place!  THE U!  I work on maternal-newborn, OBGYN, and the nursery.  I hope to float to the newborn ICU after I'm trained.  I love it so far!

Now for a series of pictures describing all the fun activities we've been up to....Back in July we went to the rodeo with the Combe couple, Kenz and Josh.  I love rodeos!

Yeeee-haw

In July we also went to Bear Lake with Petersens.  We had lots of fun on the beach, good food and activities, and Bryce solidified his friendship with our darling cousin Sophie.

For the 24th (I guess it was Saturday the 23rd) we decided to watch fireworks from our car since it was raining.  We had a picnic in the back of the Ford with Little Cesear's pizza and then watched a crazy summer rain storm as the sun was setting.  Then it was firework time!  

Another fun part of summer is the Twilight summer concert series now held at Pioneer Park downtown.  We went to one of the concerts, I can't even remember the name of the band now, but they are hippies so I wore a hippie headband.  There were so many people!  It was fun to go to a concert since I love them so much, plus it was free!

Then at the end of July, this little turkey turned one!  I swear I was just holding him in the hospital after he was born!  Isn't he adorable?  We had fun watching him eat lots of cake and get messy at his party.

He's holding his "first cell phone" from his awesome Aunt and Uncle!

For a friday-saturday we go to watch our adorable nephews while their parentals went out of town!  We had so much fun.  I think Luke made me watch the movie "Up" four times ha ha.

Logan can see himself on the screen - hence the blank look on his face

One weekend in August before school started we drove up to Pocatello to visit my Grandma and Grandpa Bateman.  I love visiting them!  They have the coziest house.  Anyone with awesome grandparents knows the feeling I'm talking about.  We went shopping, saw The Help, and even Bryce and Gramps went golfing.  My grandma is one of my best friends.  Lots of people call their moms when they have good or bad news and I'm lucky because I get to call my mom AND my grandma.  We had such a fun weekend relaxing with them!

I found some old photo albums and I was so happy when I saw this.  My lovely grandma after my sissy was born.  Apparently I was taking care of dolls at this stage in life.

U of U football season!  We bought season tickets back in March so we had almost forgotten we'd be going to all of the games!  It's such a rush to sit with all of the fans in The Muss and scream and shout the whole time.  We love football season!

The annual marathon relay!  It's now considered annual because we did it last year too ha ha.  I'll make a separate post about it because I have lots of pics and stories to share, but here's my husband the morning of who was still sick with the flu.  He was NOT looking forward to his run ha ha, but he made it!

The Utah State Fair!  I can't believe it was our 3rd time there together since we went when we were dating as well.  This year there was a free concert - KC and the Sunshine Band.  I'm into old music, but for those who aren't familiar with the name he sings "Shake shake shake your booty" and "Do a little dance....get down tonight!"  You know, the 70s.  And this guy was literally 60 years old now and running out of breath ha ha.  Only at the state fair!  

On Sat Sept 27 (the day of Utah's holy war) we were invited by the Leishman Lovers to go to the REAL game.  We love REAL games with these two!  Not only do they have awesome seats and get free food, but this time there was a One Republic concert after the game.  REAL won the game 1-0 and then we sang our hearts out and cuddled during OneRepublic.

And FINALLY, the end of our post!  Back in August I randomly entered a contest with Ciara Richardson Photography to have a free photo shoot doing whatever I wanted and free Hair & Make-up with Stephanie Brinkerhoff.  I thought it would be awesome to win so I entered and sure enough, on Ciara's blog a couple weeks later....

I was the winner!  

I really debated about what kind of pictures to have taken.  I thought about casual clothes that would be cute, but we had engagements taken less than 2 years ago and nothing has really changed (besides our collective 20 lbs of growth ha ha) and I didn't really go crazy about the idea.  BUT I really have looked at people's wedding pictures since we got married and I always catch myself saying "awww I wish we had cute poses like that" or "I wish I had that picture of Bryce and I" and so....I decided to put on the wedding dress that I love and make Bryce take bridal/groomal pictures with me!!!  Ha ha, call me crazy, but I'm already so happy that I did.  

Ciara already posted this one and I almost cried because it's so perfect and EXACTLY what I wanted.  I can't wait for the rest!

So that is where we are in life today!  I'm so excited for sticky buns at Susan's General Conference Sunday and more U of U football games.  Oh...and Halloween??  Yes please!  Can't wait!  Happy Fall :)

Story of the Day

Last night at 10:30 while waiting for our favorite show Suits to start at 11 Bryce asks if I want to go get a Dr. Pepper.

(Why are they waiting for a show to start? Who does that? We don't have DVR...yes, we do exist)

Me: I don't know. I'm wearing snow leopard pajama bottoms and a I'm the bride t-shirt...

Bryce: that's okay, nobody will even notice.

Me: okay fine

The Result
"Hey I'm glad I'm not the only one who dresses up to go to Top Stop!"
Thank you I know.
"What'd he do, drag you off the couch to get here?"
Basically.
And finally the cashier had some input asking if my shirt "was for real?"
Yes, it is for reals.

Well Bryce your prediction of no one noticing failed miserably.
Good thing I have a sense of humor!

In NEW YORK!

My lifelong dream since childhood came true in July as I finally made it to the Big Apple!  New York I have arrived!  Too bad I couldn't stay...although as I've learned before, humidity is not made for natural curly/frizzy/wavy hair.  The trip was a generous gift from my MIL Robyn who took my sis-in-law, Britney, and I for our birthdays.  Get ready for lots and lots of pictures! 

Our first stop was right off the red eye flight at eight in the morning at the Today show where we caught a glimpse, literally, of Blake Shelton singing about his 'Honey Bee'.  He was great!

Next we went straight to see the Statue of Liberty!  My MIL and SIL were great to go do all the touristy things with me even though they'd gone several times before and done the same things!  There's nothing like seeing this monument up close and in person.  It's truly majestic!

We loved the iPhone's 'flip the camera so you can see yourselves' feature on this trip!  We like it much better than bothering strangers to take your picture :)

 Times Square!  It was so cool in person!  And oh so many people everywhere.  I could people watch in New York for days on end I'm sure.  We wanted a picture with the naked cowboy and he forced this pose upon us.  I was unaware of his hand position until after I saw the picture.  I'm sorry if it's offensive grammy! :)

Seeing this piano at FAO Shwartz was so great!  My dad, sis, and I have watched and laughed at Big several times over the years.  It was a lot of fun to see this childhood memory in person.

 Now what I've been waiting for...a broadway show!  There wasn't anything in particular I was dying to see, so Momma Mia was a great choice since it's an all around fun show.  There was no disappointment here!

 We waited in a long long line to go up the Empire State Building for the view.  It was quite remarkable and worth the wait!

The night life in times square!

 On the last day of our trip we got to go on a bike tour through central park and eat lunch at the boat house!  (From the adorable movie 27 dresses).  Don't laugh at my awesome bike helmet that was necessary for such an intense ride on paved roads :)

The boat house!  We are smiling despite the stifling heat.  If you look closely you can see how sticky I am!

I've seen this shot in like 3 movies since I've been home!  I watch a lot of movies and I can't believe how  much  NYC is used.  Bryce is already sick of me saying "hey, I've been there!"

Taking pics on top of the J.W. Marriott where we stayed.

We walked approximately 5 miles a day, rode the subway, and hollered for cabs.  We shopped, shopped, and shopped some more.  We stopped by Ground Zero which is a giant construction site that will have a new large world trade center, a transit station, and a memorial for Sep 11.  The church across the street which housed thousands of volunteers during the cleanup was really neat to see.  I love the powerful men and woman in our country! We had DELICIOUS food, but amazingly stayed the same size because of all the walking and heat!  I loved shopping on fifth avenue and looking at all the window displays.  I got some cute clothes and a purse from Chinatown (now THAT was an experience!).  We even went to church in the building that has the Manhattan temple!  I really feel like I got a taste of New York.  It was a great girls trip!  I sure missed my hubby, but if Robyn has an inkling to go again, I'm always going to be up for this trip!