Last Little Bit of West Jordan, UT

Before I post about our last few months of vacation I figured I should say a little blip to cover our final few adventures while living in West Jordan!  We attended a couple of sporting events downtown and made use of the public transportation on those nights.

Here we are on the Trax

The first event we went to was a Utah Jazz B-ball game.  Before the game they flew this blimp around the arena to advertise, I thought that was pretty funny. 

The players are down there warming up and the blimp is flying by

 

 And this is both of us :)

They played the Oklahoma City Thunder and they Won! So that made it extra fun. Then, a few weeks later we went to a Utah Blaze arena football game.  We had a groupon for this game so we got a free shirt - Kyle is showing it off below. 

This game was not very crowded at all and after the 1st or 2nd quarter Kyle and I walked down a few flights of stairs and claimed some new, much closer seats . . . hehe.  No point wasting the closer view with empty seats.  I don't remember if the Blaze won or not that night but it was a close game which made it a good one to watch. 

I also got crafty and made us some new accent pillows for our couch.  I was getting tired of all brown.  They turned out very cute but they are definitely a little lop-sided. . . I've got to practice keeping the stitches strait on the sewing machine, I just get really excited/anxious to finish, and want to go fast, hehe. 

 

This is how they turned out!

I tried to do a good job of securely sewing those buttons down but I still get paranoid that one of the buttons is going to pop off.  Hopefully that won't be too soon :) And there is always glue.

Kyle and I also managed to get a hike in before leaving Utah.  Just one though (sad, I know).  We went to the area planning to do this one hike that was supposed to have a waterfall but that hike was on the side of the Mt that was still too snowy to go on.  So, we started up the trail on the other, less-snowy side.  It was a good hike and we were getting close to the end when all of the sudden Kyle was like "Hey Sharon - that looks like a bear."  I stopped and looked and then Kyle was like "oh man, that REALLY looks like a bear." And sure enough there was something big and dark moving across the way... When Kyle originally said he saw a bear he was trying to play a trick on me and thought it was just a rock or something that resembled an animal - But then it MOVED.  We watched it for a few minutes and finally could tell that it was a moose and not a bear.  But that was a scary few minutes.  And when we realized it was a moose we ventured a little further down the trail and it was still scary because that was a big ol' moose. 

Even in the picture it sort of looks like a bear, huh?

 

After we passed the spot where we spotted the moose we didn't get to go much further because we had reached the snow and a little creak/run-off and the ground got mushy.  But after we survived the hike we decided it was pretty awesome that we got to see some wildlife on our one hike. 

And most importantly we celebrated our two year anniversary!  Time really does fly and I already feel like April 17th is just around the corner again.  For our anniversary we played some putt-putt. It was a pretty neat/elaborate course. But the best part was that we were with each other!

:)

More to come SOON!

New Furniture

It's been pretty beneficial to have a husband who works at a furniture store :) We've gotten Great deals on a tv stand and a new kitchen table lately. Our favorite place to shop is the damaged section.

Here is our awesome TV stand!!

Do you like it? Can you tell that we had to fix it up a little bit? When we got it a glass panes had been busted out of one of the doors. We were originally thinking we could get another piece of glass for the other door but then we realized we could really do whatever we wanted in the middle of the doors. I found these cute little tile-ish things (they are made to be wall hangings_ at Michaels and we put 4 together in each door opening.

I'm still debating if I want to do more to it (maybe put some trim in there like used to be on the glass). But for now it is good!

How it used to be

So we got this stand for about one third of retail price and then spent $12 bucks to fix it up! A fun little project. And then most recently we got a new table. It's a cute little square counter-height table. We are enjoying it!

Comic Relief

At the end of January we got to cash in on one of our Christmas gifts from my aunt Delsa. She got us tickets to Brian Regan's show in Salt Lake. We went out to get some sushi and then headed to the show.

Waiting for the show to begin!

Here he is!

We had a lot of fun. He and his opening act (can't remember who it was...) were both really good! Thank you much Delsa!

Christmas Time Again!!!

We had another great Christmas together! Kyle surprised me and got a tree for us this year. Last year in Rexburg we weren't at our apartment much during Christmas time so we didn't get a tree for ourselves. But we got a tree this year! It was a lot of fun and made our apartment smell like evergreen :)

Decorating the Tree

Sarah was asked to be a bridesmaid in her former roommates wedding a little before Christmas time. So my family came down and spent some time with us on their way to Idaho for the wedding. We had a mini Christmas with them and that was really nice. We went to see Voicemale (male a capella group) in concert at Thanksgiving Point and before the show we drove through the Christmas light they had set up. I love a capella music - it's so cool what they can do with their voices. While my family was here we also went to the temple.

Oquirrh Mt Temple (hope I spelled that right...)

Then mom and Sarah took off to Idaho and my dad took off for California to see his mom and sister. I got to see some of the photos from the wedding and Sarah looked great and it looked like a fun wedding. This was the wedding for her roommate that I did engagement photos for. It would have been fun to be able to go. After my dad spent a few days in Cali, he took off with his mom and sister for a road trip to Colorado - where my cousins were. On their way through to Colorado they stopped by to say hi.

Kyle, Me, Grandma Anja, Aunt Suvi, Dad

And then. . . it was actually time for our Christmas Vacation!!! We spent Christmas in California! It was the first warm Christmas of my life. The weather was So nice and I wished that I hadn't already packed away my summer clothes so that I could have them in that warm Cali sun. While we were there we got to do a lot of fun things! We rode four wheelers through the desert, took bikes through the island Coronado, visited the new Mormon Battalion in Old Town, went on a hike and spent some time in Balboa Park taking family photos!

At the top of the hike!

We looked so cool back in 1847. . .

And of course I had a lot of fun taking some family photos!

Christmas day was a lot of fun! We got up early and did gifts and breakfast before church at 9. Then we all had a nice nap after church (at least I know I crashed). Kyle and I got a great camping stove and an awesome wireless internet streaming blu-ray player! We've now collected all of the Harry Potter movies on blu-ray, hehe.
Christmas was so nice!! I keep telling Kyle that I can't wait till he is in school again so that we will have longer vacations. Thank you Hadley Family for a Wonderful Christmas!!

One Quarter of a Century!

I am very behind on blogging. . . in case you haven't noticed. SO, here I am at the computer to get caught up it all. And the first order of business is (drum roll. . . . . . ) KYLE'S 25th BIRTHDAY!! Yay! We had a fun evening, starting with gifts. I always have a lot of fun getting gifts for Kyle; his birthday and holidays are pretty much the only time I'm allowed to shop for him, hehe.Opening his gifts!

Showing off some of his loot. . .

After he opened his gifts we headed out for his Birthday dinner!! Ever since we moved down here to Utah Kyle had been wanting to eat out at Tucanos. . . It's a Brazilian grill style restaurant and it is Yummy. The waiters come around with big skewers of different gourmet grilled meats cut you off whatever you want. And for all of the side items they have a massive buffet with all delicious foods.

Here we are! We got the Brazilian lemonades and they were very good - just like everything else!

And Kyle was a good sport and let the waiters come over and sing him happy birthday while he danced around with this tambourine! It was a lot of fun. Hope your 25th year is a great one Kyle, Love You!

Birthday and Halloween

Birthday Time Again
I recently turned 23! Kyle and I both had work but we celebrated that night. We started out by opening gifts!
Thanks everyone for remembering me during my birthday! I felt like I had So Many gifts. Not that gifts are what matters, but it was still fun to get them. :)

Here I am with two of my favorite gifts from my wonderful husband! He got me a Snuggie!! I've always thought a snuggie would be a neat thing to have and I was SO right! I Love my snuggie, it's so warm and cozy and it has sleeves and so I can use my arms and not get cold. It's everything the infomercial says! I could really be their next spokes woman. Also, I got a nice wii gun and hunting game. I'm not so good a wii games that involve racing or sports, but shooting I can do! So those have been fun gifts. I think Kyle is secretly jealous of my snuggie because I'll find him using it sometimes, hehe.

After gifts we went downtown to Bruges Waffles & Frites. It's a tiny little Belgian restaurant that, of course, has been featured on Man vs. Food. On the left is Kyles sandwich, the 'machine gun' which was the sandwich featured on Man vs. Food. It's got sausage, Frites (which are double fried french fries) and special, Belgian sauce. On the right is my 'waffle monster' which features ice cream, strawberries and a peanut-butter type spread that is made out of cookies and actually has no peanuts (i hope that made sense, I can't remember the real name). Yummy!

And here I am with my birthday Hershey pie :) 23 has been good to me so far. To celebrate my new age I have signed up to run the Utah Valley Marathon on June 6th! Kyle outlined a training program for me (it's convenient being married to a certified personal trainer) and so far, so good!

Halloween in Utah
I really felt like we would get some trick-or-treaters this year, since we are in a complex that has a lot of kids and since we are in the middle of a neighborhood. I got some candy and was all ready to pass it out and tell the kids how great they looked in their costumes. But no one came. Oh well. I even set out our awesome jack-o-lantern and everything
This must have been what scared the trick-or-treaters away. . . It was supposed to be a witch but I think the nose makes it look more like a scare-crow. Not our best pumpkin ever but it was still fun to have. Another Fall-ish thing we've done this year was to making caramel apples!! The caramel apple kit was a birthday gift from Kyle's mom.
We weren't the best at dipping the apples but they sure turned out yummy! Well, that's what's happening with the Hadleys for now! We sure are excited for the Holidays!

Graduation & Movin' On!

Well, it's been a while and a lot has happened! First of all, Kyle GRADUATED!

Doesn't he look good as a graduate? And always :) I think this is my favorite picture of him from graduation.
And here I am with him. Graduation weekend was a fun one. Kyle's whole family got to come out and celebrate with us. We had his graduation dinner at Texas Road House (it is by far our favorite place to eat out when we are celebrating something). Kyle was able to make some bbq for his mom and April and introduce all of his siblings to his new found hobby- disc golf :)
On Saturday we went to Lava Hot Springs and spent the day floating the river there. It's about a 15 minute float and then you hop out and walk the trail back to where you put in. We rented a 3person tube and a 4person tube and took turns floating down together. I don't have any photos from my camera :( But I know there are some on other cameras, so if I get them I will add them. Kyle and I had floated the river before and we had pretty good luck as far as not getting thrown out, etc (a couple of the spots have sneaky rapids, and you can also choose to go over a little water fall at the start). Unfortunately, not everyone had such good luck. . . but we all had fun! And before we left Lava we cooked up (I should say, Kyle's dad cooked up) a very tasty dutch oven dinner! On Sunday we took a family portrait. We went out in the yard after church and I got to practice my photography skills with the timer set and a tripod. We will do some more at Christmas.
I think this one turned out the best - it had the least funky shadow lines. On Monday we loaded up and headed out to Yellowstone! We spent the day driving through the park and checking out the attractions. The animals were surprisingly scarce but we spotted some none the less! Then, that evening we went to the Playmill theater and saw Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. We really enjoyed it!! I had always wanted to go the the Playmill theater and I wasn't disappointed! And even though plays and similar performances aren't really Kyle's thing, he loved it too. We were glad we had the weekend to spend with family and grateful for everything they did for us!

And so, that left us both graduated and itching for adventure! We were looking on-line for jobs in UT and AZ. When we looked into the cost of moving vans we realized it would be Significantly cheaper to move (closer) to Utah. And so, we packed up a few days worth of clothes and headed to UT in search of jobs and housing. We mostly stayed with Kyle's grandparents but we were also able to cash in on one of our Christmas gifts. For Christmas, Sarah had given us a one night stay at the Anniversary Inn is one of there themed rooms. We stayed in the nautical room. It was very snazzy. And the best part was the breakfast in bed!
When we arrived they had us fill out our breakfast request cards and then the next morning a knock came at the door and we found this waiting for us. So yummy and so pretty. Thank you Sarah! Job searching and apartment searching was a little stressful, not going to lie. But Kyle and I took turns being optimistic and we made it through! With a job lead in hand and an apartment we both agreed on, we packed up our Rexburg apartment and headed for West Jordan, Utah!
And we had just enough room for everything, as you can see. Kyle was worried that the 10ft truck wouldn't be big enough - I assumed it would be plenty big with room to spare. Turns out, it was just right. The drive was pretty uneventful (thank goodness!). Kyle has a reputation for crashing things when he drives them for the first time. . . So, needless to say, I was a little nervous to have him drive the moving truck- but everything made it in once piece! The initial job lead Kyle had (with 24hr fitness) fell through - I guess the gym isn't really doing so well so they didn't want to hire him on and then have no clients to give him. But, we are okay. Kyle found a full-time job at Furniture Row. The managers there loved him so much they told him he could have any job he wanted (sales, warehouse, driver/delivery). He chose the warehouse so that he wouldn't have to work Sundays. He's enjoying that and still getting used to it. He has been sore some because he spends all day (he works 4 long day a week) moving heavy furniture. But we are grateful that he found a good job! And as for me, I'm still figuring things out. I'm currently managing the apartments we live in (saves us on rent!). It's been an adventure so far. But managing isn't too demanding since there are only 20 apartments. I'm hoping the company will have me take on some more so that this can be my job and I won't have to find additional, part-time work. But we will see. I should have it all figured out for sure soon. Anyway, I thought I would post some photos of our apartment!!
Notice the new couch? Our old couch was pretty beat up, and we didn't have room to bring it - so we went furniture shopping! And we found this sectional on a great deal! When you walk in our front door you look R and see the kitchen, L and see the living room. There is a wall dividing the living room & kitchen. Then if you exit the kitchen or living room you come to our bedroom and laundry area. Bedroom is on the L, laundry area on the R. And then, at the very back of our apartment, is the big bathroom! It is definitely an upgrade from our Rexburg basement. Lots of room, bigger bathroom with a tub, storage galore, and our own laundry! We really have settled in nicely. It's fun being closer to Kyle siblings and other relatives. And, that is it. I feel like I've been typing away at this for a Long time - but that is okay, there was a lot to catch up . . . until next time.