Lots of stuff

Due to being lazy and forgetting my camera, I have been a slacker and have missed some really fun events. Here is a recap:


Why don't we take a trip back to Halloween! Our friends Allie and Matt really got us into carving pumpkins. If you know these guys, they are pretty much professional pumpkin carvers. Last year I did Austin Powers and Trav did Bob Marley. This year I attempted Dr. Evil, but to my dismay his face caved in. Since I was pretty upset that all my time went to waste, I decided I was not going to do another professional job, so I just carved an amateur spider from a pattern (lame). But Trav stuck to his guns and went all out and carved this little piece of awesome. Do you know what it is?

If you guessed the Death Star then you can call yourself correct (and you can also call yourself a bit of a dork, its from Star Wars if you didn't know... I didn't).
The cool thing about this baby was that it won 1st place in the pumpkin carving contest at Travis's school (there were only two contestants, he he) but we won $40 to the Cheesecake factory! Its good to know where all of our tuition money is going.
On Halloween we hung out with a bunch of our good friends. We ate soup and experienced a really scary haunted basement. The theme was to dress up like famous couples.

I don't know what the crap they are! Sarah and Jim kind of just do what they want.










We were the best parents ever, Brit Brit and K-Fed


Moving on to Thanksgiving... Travis's parents came to visit and have Thanksgiving with us. We kind of had to cram them in our little apartment for a whole week, but we had a lot of fun. Travis's mom is a really good cook so I knew I had to have my "A" game on in the kitchen. But before the cooking fest went on we of course had to play football! We met up with a bunch of our friends and played for a couple of hours. It was fun but it was frickin' freezing!!! It definitely got our appetites going.

We own you Oman's!


I did the turkey (which we named Bill), with a lot of help and supervision from Mama Kath, it turned out really good! We really enjoyed our little intimate dinner with just the four of us. Then Papa John didn't surprise anyone with downing two ginormous pieces of pie. He probably had pie for breakfast and dinner the rest of the week. How is he not a diabetic?
Bill the Turkey


Travis the Turkey
This is what they do while we slave away in the kitchen.

Just kidding... they helped a lot.
After Thanksgiving, we went and saw a lot of church sites such as Independence visitors center and the RLDS temple, etc. We also joined the masses for black Friday for a minute, we couldn't control Mama Kath with all the sweet deals!And of course we watched the Cougs thrash the Utes. Thank heavens above... we would've had two ornery fans for the rest of the trip if they would have lost. Thanks for hanging out with us Charles's!


And finally the start of Christmas! I can't believe it is already here. We had our first Christmas party of the year at the Hastings house. There were about 9 couples. We had tons of fun. We had dinner, then of course did the famous white elephant gift exchange. We took our pinata that we never used for Travis's b-day party back in September, full of candy I might add. It was definitely a hit. After that game we played Christmas pictionary. The girls kicked the boys bums! I think I got my first whiff of the Christmas spirit and am way excited!

Bachelor Drama

Okay. Travis is going to kill me for posting this, but I had too. Did anyone watch the finale of the Bachelor? I about died. First of all, I usually don't get into the Bachelor that much, honestly it is a pretty dumb reality show. But for some reason I got so absorbed in it. The way I would justify watching it was that I would work out during the show and watch it as I was on the treadmill. It sure made the running go by fast! I thought this bachelor (Brad) was super hot! I also liked his personality, although sometimes it was a little too formal. I liked Jenni the best. She had such a sweet and real personality (and she is from Kansas... woohoo). But I thought he had a stronger connection with DeAnna. Anyways, I was watching the finale on Monday night, I felt bad because my in laws flew in that day to see us for Thanksgiving, but I made them watch it with me. The cool part was that they totally got sucked into it as well. My father-in-law (who is a retired social worker/counselor) was so funny because he would analyze the relationships, and we would pause the Tivo, and then we would chat about it. I almost threw my shoe at the TV when Brad didn't pick either of them. I can understand not feeling ready to get married and not wanting to propose, but couldn't he just say "hey lets date exclusively and see what happens?" Instead he just dumped both of their "A's" I think this guy definitely has issues. Kind of reminds me of how stressful dating life was back in the day. Okay I'm done thinking about this because I have already wasted enough of my life on this trash. Can't wait till next season (did I say that out loud)

Homesick!

Beware... I am whining. I have just been feeling a little homesick lately. I don't know if its because the holidays are coming, or if it is because daylight savings happened (which makes things a little more depressing due to the fact that when I leave work it is dark) or if it is because a lot of fun things are happening back at home. I kind of feel like a baby because its not like I haven't visited. We were home for 10 days last Christmas, I went home again in January for my Grandma's funeral, I was home in May for the Charles's reunion and then again in August for my cousin's wedding. Looking at that, I can't believe I am venting about being homesick! I guess the fact that I wasn't there when Sadie had Annabelle and that I still haven't seen her makes it worse, or that all of my neices and nephews are growing up so fast I worry that they won't remember Trav and I (parents you better be showing them pictures of us nightly or so help me), or the fact that so many of my friends are getting married... 5 good friends have or will be married in the space of 3 months and I will only be at one of the the weddings. I despise the fact that we miss so many family get togethers and traditions such as Draper Days, the 4th of July, the Halloween family party, going out on dates with siblings and their spouses, etc. And a lot of my friends have had babies who are growing so fast as well. I wish I knew Ryan and Cannon better. I really miss my grandparents too. I love them so much and although they are very youthful and healthy, I never know how much time I will have left with them. I can't even imagine not having my Grandma Gladys. So anyways... I just want everyone to know that we think of you often and miss you tons. Don't forget about us and please please stay in touch. That is what really keeps me going. Relationships are the best things in the world. I have been sad to have lost connections with people from the past, but have learned so much from everyone I have come into contact with. Whoa, I'm going off. Don't get me wrong, I think this experience is great. I have always wanted to move away and have an adventure so I am grateful for this opportunity. All I wanted to say was that I am homesick! We are coming to Utah the 20th to the 29th of December so I hope I can see everyone. Love you all!

Its all about the wings!

I just had to share this experience. I played on a slow pitch coed softball team this past Summer and Fall. Our season ended and we took first place. So of course we had to celebrate... no not Disney Land... Hooters! Our team consisted of the typical beer drinking, potty mouth guys who actually had wives... who could actually play pretty well. I was a little hesitant to go but my coworker, who also played on the team, insisted that I go. So I did and I invited Trav. And he went. I was expecting this crazy wicked place with gross men and bad things everywhere, and was ready to shield Travis's eyes the whole night, but I was pleasantly surprised. The outfits really weren't that revealing, just short shorts and tight tanks and the atmosphere was almost a family type atmosphere. Don't get me wrong, there was definitely beer drinking and loudness to the place, but I looked around and saw lots of woman and men there just hanging out on a Wednesday night. Apparently that night, there was a big trivia game going on between all the different tables. It was really fun and we got into it. Oh and let me tell ya the wings.... well they were... .... .... not that good. I had so much fun that I was thinking that maybe I could pick up an application to work there... but then I looked down at myself and thought that they would probably only allow me in the back with the cooks. Oh well.

26.2

First of all I just want to warn everybody that this is going to be one long freaking blog. It is more of a journal entry since I kind of count this as my journal. Last Saturday I lost my running marathon virginity. I ran the Kansas City marathon. It was awesome! I have been training since April with my pal named Amy. In these runs I have learned a lot of wierd things about her that I am sure she would not want me to share, so I wont Amy. Vice versa for her too, so you better keep your mouth shut! Anyways I want to share my experience of running 26.2 miles. My greatest fear of this adventure was that I was going to lose control of my bowels and mess my pants; but this did not happen. I will start from the beginning. The race started at 7 am in downtown Kansas City. We left at about 6:10 am and hit some pretty heavy traffic. Oh and I just wanted to note that Travis volunteered to come early with us because he wanted to see the starting line (how sweet is that?) So we packed him a camping chair, a pillow, a blanket and of course Joanna (his computer). Anyways, by the time we parked, met up with some people and walked half a mile to the starting line (which i'm counting as mileage, so I should rename this blog 26.7) the race had already started. We were about 5 minutes behind! I could see the huge mass of people about 300 yards ahead of me. Amy and I kind of freaked out and just started booking it to catch up; which isn't very smart if you want to keep a constant pace. We were weaving and bobbing through the crowd.(Oh and I have to mention that we had gone to Target earlier that week and bought matching running outfits.) We probably ran the first 3 miles at a 7:15 minute pace. We even got people yelling at us saying "you got 24 more miles to go, you may want to pace it." So. We finally got to where we felt we needed to be and kept a pretty steady pace. My favorite part of the race was mile 6. I was feeling really fresh and we were in a cool part of the city and the water station was Halloween decorated. It was fun. The race was extremely hilly though. I think I started to hit my wall at mile 14 (and that is when my bowels started barking; I felt like my worst fear was going to come true). I was going to stop at the next potty which was at mile 16, but when we got there, the feeling went away and I didn't want to sacrifice my time. I actually hit a high at mile 20. It was wierd because everyone says that you can train for the first 20 miles of a marathon, but the last 6 you are on your own. When I saw the mile marker I got a wierd feeling. It was almost an emotional feeling knowing I was so close to the finish. Well, that feeling lasted about 2 miles. I don't know what genious planned the route, but from mile 22 to 23 there was a ginormous hill. This about did me in. I felt like I was going to die. I made it through the hill, but I did not want to stop at anymore drink stations because I knew that if I stopped running it would be too difficult to start. My wise friend Amy said that it was dumb to skip any drink stations, so I listened to her and walked while I drank (I learned the hard way in the first drink station that you can't run and drink at the same time, red gatorade everywhere!). The last mile was really cool. There were a lot of runners starting to cramp up, some on the side of the road stretching and some people had to start walking. I felt a little adrenaline and booked it to the finish line with Amy. It was such a neat feeling because I saw my Dad on the sidelines cheering for us and he ran to the course and gave me a high five along with my sister Sadie, right before we crossed. Then I saw Trav filming me with the video camera and my mom with her huge camera. Yay! We finished. I had an awesome fan club. It was the coolest feeling!!! Even though we started 5 minutes after the race, we had chips on our shoes that started the official time when we passed the starting line, which made the start to finish time accurate. Our time was 3 hours and 48 minutes.




Highlights of the marathon:
Haunted mile 6 and the drink station
Amy and my matching outfits and getting called twins along the whole race
At mile 14 drink station the guys passing out water were wearing nothing by tighty-whities
Realizing that Kansas city is actually gorgeous
Watching Amy try to eat goo
Meeting random people ie: Zach who tried to run the Chicago marathon 2 weeks earlier and quit because of the intense heat, and the "real" twins that wore matching outfits
People running in costumes: a turtoise and a hair, a nun and a monk, a mohawk man oh and this isn't a costume, but a man ran the whole thing bare foot
Seeing our friend Nancy qualify for Boston being 40 years old
Mile 20 and the last .2 of a mile stretch
The most amazing weather you could ask for
The magic jelly bean that Amy held the whole run in her hand
Seeing my family at the finish line
Running arm in arm with Amy and the announcer announcing that "they must be friends"
All the random people (such as homeless people on the side of the streets) cheering
The free food afterwords and eating whatever I wanted

Lowlights of the marathon:
Being late and having to find a hole in the crowd to pass people
Barking bowels at mile 14
Realizing I paid 50 bucks for this torture
Hills
Goo (gross)
The post race visit to the port-o-potty
Being sore
Making fun of a girl who was wearing a ton of make up and then realizing that she beat us

I think that about sums it up. I think I'm going to retire for awhile but will make a comeback sooner or later. It was a great experience! Thanks to Amy, Nancy and Scott for the great runs! And thanks to my family for being there and supporting. And thanks to my husband for supporting through encouragement (couldn't get his butt out of bed to go on any runs but he was always there for me in spirit).

Who are you?

Which Twilight novel character are you?

You're Bella Swan - You are intelligent and kind but not quite sure what you want out of life yet. You have a feeling there's something more out there for you. You're attracted to those who are real and avoid the fake. Sometimes you're a bit accident prone, but your true friends will always be loyal to you and come to your aid when you need it.
Take this quiz!








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TAG!

The rules:
A. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
B. Each player lists 6 facts/habits about themselves.
C. At the end of the post, the player then tags 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1. I name EVERYTHING! My wedding ring's name is Shirly, Travis's computer's name is Joanna, my alarm clock is named Stan, Travis's cars name is Delores (spanish style), etc.

2. I am obsessed with the E channel. Nothing soothes me more than hearing the latest Hollywood gossip.

3. I have a fetish with veins. I draw blood at work sometimes, so whether I am at church or at the grocery store and can tell if you would be a good stick or not.

4. I wash my hair every 3 to 4 days (if you are lucky)

5. I have very very vivid dreams and sometimes they actually come true. (Runs in the family, thanks Grandma Gladys)

6. I still have a crush on Uncle Jessie

Now I tag Allie, Tracie, Sarah, Lauren, Brandi and Stacie

Trav's Golden Birthday!

HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY TRAV!

My ancient husband turned the big 30 last week! I know what you are thinking, he looks like he is 17. Well he's 30 OK. Don't get him confused with me, I'm no where near 30, he just robbed the cradle, that's all. My family growing up always thought that when you turned the age of the date of your b-day (IE: Trav's b-day is Sept 30Th and he turned 30, mine was when I turned 8 on Feb 8Th) then this is called your golden b-day. Since it was 1) Travis's golden b-day and 2) his 30Th b-day I decided, what the hay, let's throw him a surprise b-day party. If anyone knows me, you will know that I am no good at the cheesy wife things like this, so this was definitely out of my comfort zone. With all the scheming behind Trav's back, stress, money, and insecurity I pulled it off. The party was held at a pavilion at a park near by. The plan was for Travis to go play video games at his friend Jim's house and then Jim would get him to the park by explaining that they were going to the Royals game and meeting everyone at the park. It was a brilliant plan. Trav had no idea, he even searched the house before hand to find his ball glove so he could take it to the game (I was trying really hard not to laugh). I guess with all the planning, the decorating, and the anxiety I was expecting this huge life shattering surprise for Travis, but when he got there, we all hid, jumped out and yelled "SURPRISE" and that was that, pretty melodramatic. We had a great time. We BBQ ed, played games, and ate! The only problem was that the lights forgot to come on at about 8:30, so we partied in the dark for awhile until it was pitch black. Some think that the party ended early because of the lack of light, but in all reality it ended because we are all old and wanted to go to bed. It was a great night, and I want to thank all my friends for helping.

This is Travis's b-day cake, I think all those 3 year olds out there would be very jealous of this treasure chest. My friend Brandi helped me decorate. She was actually the brains behind it. She would tell me what to do and I would do it without questions. It turned out really fun and now I think it would be really fun to take a cake decorating class.

Here is the cake after, how heart breaking!

Don't pass out baby!

On his actual birthday he woke up to a hoard of presents (beautifully wrapped). They were from his parents, my parents and me. His parents and brothers got him some software for his computer, my parents got him a computer bag and some money and I bought him a suit. After all he is 30 now, he should start dressing like it.

What a hotty! I hope you had a good birthday Trav! I love you!

I Heart Fall

I just thought that I would express my recent discovery that I love this time of year. For the following reasons:

a) The crazy hot humid heat is slowly leaving (this is one reason why I just discovered I love Fall, I usually am obsessed with Summer, but after living in Kansas, I rather not always look like I'm dripping wet 24-7)

b) Fall clothes. Nothing is better than jeans and a sweatshirt. You don't have to worry about shaving, or if your legs look fat, or again not worrying about sweating all over those clothes.

c) The moon (not that kind of moon you perv). It just seems like they are huge in the harvest season, last week during the full moon, I swear it was closer than normal, because it was huge and orangey-yellowish. Very cool.

d) The harvest feeling in the air. You can almost just smell it. Pumpkins are in harvest along with all the other fun Fall veggies.

e) The beautiful leaves. I might have to admit that Falls here are prettier than in Utah, OK Utah minus the mountains. There are a million trees everywhere, so during the Fall they all change colors and it is magnificent!

f) The activities. Such as: pumpkin carving (which thanks to Mallie we are becoming experts, no triangle eyes anymore, we are way above that), the fun treats (if anyone has any fun Halloween recipes send them my way), dressing up (sorry Owrin I know you hate it). I can't wait to see what my nieces and nephews will be, and going to pumpkin patches.


I could go on and on but I'll just "leaf" it at that. He he!

Zoobies in Tulsa

There isn't too much to do here in the midwest so when we found out that BYU was playing Tulsa in Tulsa we jumped on the Mormon bandwagon and headed 3 hours south to Tulsa Oklahoma to watch our beloved Cougars play. Since we are wild and crazy we decided to go down a night early because the football team was having a devotional. There was no way of missing the chance of being that close to the team. I felt like the biggest groupie because the team's flight was late making them late to the devotional leaving us sitting in the church just singing hymns. I'm sure the next plan for stalling surely would have been putting our arms around the person next to us and swaying back and forth singing "We will be together forever some day," but the team finally made it. The devotional was actually really uplifting and we are very glad we went early. That was a positive experience, but the game, not so much. The Cougs lost!!! This is probably the only time I ever see my sweet husband show his emotions. He gets red hot with anger when they don't perform well. Oh well we had lots of fun!




We drove down and shared a room with the Oman's. It was a great experience. We chatted, laughed, became really familiar with Sarah's gas, and of course played games. We love the Oman's! Oh and sorry about the speeding ticket Jim :)


This is what Travis usually does with his spare time on trips.


This is what I usually do with my spare time on trips. I'm glad he loves me because i'm annoying.



Before the game there was a huge tail gaiting party for all the BYU alumni. I'm sure you are picturing casseroles and noodle salads, but you would be wrong. They had BBQ catered (people must be paying their tithing these days). We went to Tulsa with 6 other couples; a very fun group. You know its a very small Mormon world when you run into a bunch of old friends from college. Trav even ran into an old mission companion. It was quite the zoo just like BYU was back in the day.


Travis... you got some 'splaining to do, whose baby is that? Even though the Cougs lost, we got to hang out with our favorite midwestern twins. Sadie and Samantha. They were troopers through the whole night. (PS The man wearing the UTAH sweatshirt is their dad, but we don't claim him, he actually wore that to the BBQ in a sea of blue. He is an avid UTAH fan, but like I said there isn't a lot to do in the midwest so sometimes people will do anything for a road trip)

posted by Milli

Vampire Love?

So I have been reading a series about vampire romance... Yeah thats what I said... What? Who am I? I'm not usually one for supernatural at all but I got sucked in (pun intended). There is this craze going on in Utah, (and I guess everywhere else, all 3 books are on the NY times best sellers, so you may have probably heard about it), it is the Twilight series, by Stephanie Meyers. I read the first book called "Twilight" in 5 days and i'm nearing the end of the 2nd book (which wasn't available in paper back so I bought the hard cover- what did I tell ya, sucked right in) called "New Moon." I'm so sucked in that I even went to the authors web page and read everything to know about the books and the outtakes and everything. Don't tell Trav, but I think I have a crush on the main character who is a vampire, he is dead sexy (literally)! So I guess I can see how those crazy, dorky Harry Potter fans can get a little obsessed; ok i'm not that bad. I don't plan on dressing up like a vampire on opening night of the movie and waiting in line for hours... wait a second that could be kind of fun. Again who am I these days?


Posted by Milli

Arrowhead

We have never lived in a city with an NFL team, so naturally we have become Chief's fans. Sure, I know what you're all saying right now. The Chief's are going to start sucking. Well, that may be true, but at least we got to go to Arrowhead stadium to see them take on the Dolphin's. The idea just worked for us, as it was a preseason game (MUCH cheaper than regular season) on a week night, and it just so happened that we would get to see Mr. John Beck in some of the only action he should see this season. Our friends were going, so we just couldn't pass up the opportunity.

So I got the tickets, Milli got us some stylish Chief's gettup, and we made the plans to go. Turns out, Milli had to work before the game, so we couldn't go early to watch Beck warm up. In fact, we were going to have to hurry to get there on time. I picked her up on the way to the game, and drove fast so I could get in line in the freeway. Traffic was bad. That was when some serious instincts kicked in. Slow traffic, get in the left lane, maybe it will go faster, right? No. Get in the right lane, take every exit, and then get back on. I think the freeway entrances and exits are designed for that specific purpose. It was cheap, I know, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I think I gained at least 20 minutes with my superior driving skills.

Finally, the freeway starts moving, and we approach the stadium. We wanted to park for free, outside the stadium parking lot, so I had to figure out how to get to a decent place. We took the exit to Arrowhead, and found ourselves on a one-way road directly into the stadium parking lot. As I frantically searched for a way out, I realized that there wasn't any. When I got to the rip off booth (22$ to park), I asked how to turn around. Turns out there wasn't any. I told them I didn't have the money to park and asked if I could drive through, but they wouldn't let me. Instead, they had to close the ripoff booth stop the traffic, and let me go out the way I came in.

Did I mention it was a one-way street we came in on? Well, for the next mile, I once again had to demonstrate my amazing driving abilities as I took on 3 lanes of crazy Chief's fans who were late to the game, flying around corners to get there on time. Needless to say it was a bit scary. We made it, though, and we finally found a place for a huge discount (we only paid 15$).

Convinced that I could not get into the place with 2 liters of gatorade stuffed down my pants (they were frisking everyone as they entered), I had to drink as much as I could without throwing up before we entered. We finally got there just in time for the teams to take the field.

During the game, Milli and I didn't mind the scary loud guy spitting on us from the row behind, because Beck played the whole second half and won the game for the Dolphins. But the best part of the game may have been the crazy drunk couple that sat to our right that would just not shut up! I love football.

Summer in KC

I know we have been huge slackers with the blog thingy so we decided to post one huge slide show of our summer so we wouldn't have to post 12 different ones and bore you to death. We have survived our first summer in Kansas City. We can officially say we are... official, living in every season that exists. Rumors are that Kansas city has the most rapid temperature spands in a year ranging from freezing your booty off to wanting to wear nothing. This summer we have done a ton (you will see below). We have discovered a couple of things here that we never had in Utah. 1) one word- chiggers! These are the most horrific creatures ever. I've never actually seen a chigger, just felt one. They are such as a mosquito, but 10 times more itchy and annoying. These creatures especially love biting parts of the body that have creases... not a good thing. 2) The humidity. When you are used to the dry heat, it can be a killer (literally, at one point there was a heat warning saying to keep pets and old people inside and away from the heat; it would suck to be an old dog) Sweat is a constant companion and I can't get away with not washing my hair as much... darn it! 3) The amazing BBQ's. Ok we knew before summer that KC was famous for BBQ, but we continued to delve into this heaven all summer long. For some reason it just tastes better here.
We have really enjoyed the summer, but are definitely looking forward to the Fall, they are beautiful here. Hope you enjoy the pics!
Milli