Happy Halloween!

chels made me this flower about 5 years ago. i've had it in my drawer all this time but never really knew what i wanted to do with it. this morning on my way out the door i pinned it to my headband. viola! instant... instant something. i wasn't really sure. but I decided to go with it. a throw back to my more youthful days, if you will. (lest you have forgotten, in my elementary prime i had a wrap for wearing elaborately themed headbands.)

so a little while ago, i was waiting at the elevator on my floor and this funny old professor walked up and was totally staring at my headband. it was so obvious that I had to look away so that i wouldn't start laughing. then we get on the elevator and he decides to finally say, "you have a flower in your hair." hahahahahaha. it was so matter-of-factly. 

and so i was like, "yep...why is it goofy? and he said, "no. its nice" hahahahahhaahhahahah.

i'd been wondering all day so I had to ask! clearly, i went to the most credible source i know.  

A law student walks into a Bar...

...and hopes he passes! 

(Am I hilarious, or what?)

 Yesterday, when Regan asked me what I wanted to do this weekend my head nearly exploded. 

(Where do I even begin?)

The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter. 

So happy to have my husband back after tomorrow!

Independent Day

Today is my day off! I kind of love to have days all to myself (although, I should clarify: while a whole day to myself is great, it would be more fun if Regan wasn't in the library.) 

Days off are always a tug of war with me. One the one hand, I love to get up and do all sorts of productive chores. (Clean my baseboards! Vacuum my car! Organize my tupperware! Go to a morning class at the gym!) On the other hand, I feel like it is my chance to lounge in my pajamas while I eat bon bons and watch Regis and Kelly like a proper housewife. 

So I made a long to do list that included things like, organize my filing cabinet, watch Benjamin Button, make a 4th of July playlist, clean my bathrooms, and wash the kitchen floor.  The day was going to kick off  with me sleeping in, going to the gym, doing my cleaning, and then writing stuff down to cross off my list. (Drink a diet coke. Check! Flip through my latest Real Simple. Check! Check my email. Check!)

At 7:30am the air conditioning people called and said they were sending a repair guy over. (Oh right, I guess I never mentioned that our air conditioner has been on the fritz since LAST Friday). So, I was up and have been stuck in my house for the morning. But, I'm not complaining about that- I'd actually be a great candidate for house arrest. I will, however, complain about the fact that the repair guy just came in and sat at my table and talked to me about air conditioners for 30 min. Which basically boils down to: another weekend without a fully functioning air conditioner. Bzzt.

Luckily, the weather here yesterday and today has been awesome. Tonight we are having a picnic so I've got to start my preparations. There are so many things that sound fun to make that I'm having a hard time deciding. If I wasn't so cheap (or lazy) I would just do it all. Nothing's more American than  gluttony, am I right?

Happy holiday weekend. God Bless America!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, here is a teaser of  my 4th of July playlist:

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL by Ray Charles (I Love me some Ray Charles.)

Johnny Cash with Marty Robbins- Song of the Patriot (Not my favorite Johnny Cash but I had to include him.)

America - By Neil Diamond (Which I will dedicate to my brother Denton every time it plays.)

The Bird and the Bee - 4th of July (Just stumbled across this one and i like it.)

Willie Nelson - Living in the Promiseland (Takes me back to summers spent driving across the country)

The Beach Boys - Surfin' USA (I've seen the Beach Boys in concert on the 4th TWICE.)

Estelle - American Boy [Feat. Kanye West]  (Good beat. They use to play this at one of my classes at the gym.)

MIley Cyrus - Party In The U.S.A. (I know. I know. I couldn't help myself. Kind of like the Twilight movies...)

Kelly Clarkson - Miss Independent (This one's for Regan.  Don't tell him I told.)

FYI

July 2007 (our first married Independence Day)

I'm feeling homesick for a good old Provo 4th of July.  Hot air balloons, the parade down University Ave, Freedom Days on Center St, Stadium of Fire... I just think Provo knew how to do it up right.  Fun fact: Regan and I actually spent three 4th of July's together in Provo. One while dating, one while engaged, and one married. That's sixth 4th of July's together this week, folks. WOW.

This will actually be our first 4th of July in NC, if you can believe it. I'm going to try to make it to live up to the good old days but that Bar Exam is really cramping my style :)

Any suggestions?

By way of update

The Bar exam is the worst thing I've ever (vicariously) experienced. I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel but from where I'm sitting it is very dim!


I keep telling people that if we make it through this summer with out ending up in the funny farm I will know that we can do anything. And while I like to think it is bad for me, I know it is a billion times worse for Regan- he's battling it out in the library for 12-14 hours a day.

So send some positive thoughts his way!

Happy Birthday Suz (2 weeks early)

Going along with my homemade gift theme, I decided to give my mom her birthday gift early while I was in Richmond so I could see her open it.

We used to listen to the Janeen Brady "Standing Tall" tapes when I was little and I loved them. In fact, we listened to some of them so much that I have parts of them memorized and unfortunately the tapes are worn and warping in some places. I decided to transfer them to CD for my mom so my nieces and nephews can enjoy them when they go visit her. (And thanks to Regan's mom I was able to make the complete set- we've lost and broken a few over the years.)

Here is a little booklet I made as a card with a poem about my mom for each of the values.

And if you want to read the full poem (You do.) you can see is in this powerpoint:

Mom bday

View more presentations from lmroma24.

Happy Early Birthday To My Favorite Firecracker!

WFU Graduation May 2010

Regan got the cutest pictures from his family cheering him on from across the country:

Aren't these kids the cutest?

We are so lucky to have family on both sides that love and support us. We took a bunch of pictures this weekend with my new camera. (Regan saved up his Lexis points and got ME a graduation present for supporting him through school the last 3 years!) He graduated magna cum laude and looked so collegiate in his cap and gown. I am so proud of him and am eager to find out what our next adventure will be. I know that whatever Regan does he will succeed in... cause that's just how he rolls. Love you Regan!

Here are some of the best photos of  Regan's big day:

A few video clips of the day for your viewing pleasure. (Sorry for the shakiness- I need to work on my skills):

Announcing the magna cum laude graduates:

The oath:


The one where Regan gets his hood:

the end

Sound the alarm, ring the bell! 

I'm practically hyperventilating because

HE'S DONE!

And I'm SO SO happy. 

I really wish there was a way to make confetti pop out of your screen. 

Can you even believe it?! I had a hard time imagining this day would come. Even last week it seemed so far away. Now that it's here I can barely wrap my head around it. 

Done. Done. Done.

Regan rocked (or so I assume) his very last final yesterday. I let out an audible gasp when he came into my office right afterwards. I feel like I am graduating too. 

(I can't wait until I get my graduation gift!)

Regan has been so great at balancing all that has been on his plate, between my many demands, church callings, law review assignments,  and the general stress of school/job search. 

I am incredibly proud of him. Way to go Reg!! Love you! 

And now, it's time to celebrate...

last day

Yesterday was Regan's last day of classes. EVER. I might pass out I'm so excited for him to be done.

One more week of finals and then... (oh yeah, that darned bar exam)... he's done!

Way to go Regan!

NYC Spring Break

We had such a great time in New York! And yet, somehow now it just seems like a chore to post about it. But as my family can attest, I'm great at chores! So here it is, briefly:

We saw all the touristy things, Times Square, Rock. Ceter, the Guggenheim, NYC library, WTC, Staten Island Ferry, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge etc. We walked a TON the whole time we were there. Seriously, we walked the entire city. Partially, because it was cheaper than taking the subway and partially because the weather was beautiful. And maybe a tiny bit because we don't have an iphone with maps to tell how to get places the quickest way or an app to help us find the nearest gelato... but at least we got to really see the city!

We hit up Shake Shack (very good-but not necessarily worth the LOOOONG line we waited in), Grimaldis (our favorite- and we only waited in line for 10 minutes), and this cool (very TINY) Cuban restaurant called Cafe Habana in Soho. (And a few other places not worth mentioning.)

Also, we accidentally got escorted to (and briefly locked inside of) a secret back room of a shop for knock-offs in Chinatown. Turns out I didn't want a cheap purse that badly.

But my VERY favorite part of the trip was winning the lottery and seeing Wicked, for sure. We waited in line to put our names in for a drawing to buy cheap front row tickets- what are the odds of winning 2 out of 26 seats against about 200 people? I'm still reeling that we won. If I never win anything again I won't care b/c that was so exciting. :) We weren't supposed to take pictures in the theater but the picture on top is of my button that I got. Did I mention that we were in the front row? It definitely made the trip- even Regan agreed.


Can't wait to go again. Whenever that will be :) Next time our goal is to make it to Ellis Island. I won't bore you with a million pics...because we didn't take very many. I'll just bore you with a few:

Happy birthday part 2

Here is what we got my dad:

It's not really a book about Lincoln. It's just a book that I found at the goodwill that I would was good looking enough to be the base of my project. I cut out the inside of the book to hide some contraband: chocolate chipless cookies. His favorite. (The only person I know, besides my sister, who would prefer the chipless variety...he also choose vanilla ice cream over any other flavor, much to the chagrin of my mother.) When my dad was in college my grandma would send him care packages with chocolate chipless cookies and when my dad was in grade school he had a book that he cut the center out of and hid his a water gun in... so the present is supposed to be a throw-back to the good old days. Or at least the old days... I don't think the good old days started until '84 :)


Here is a little tribute that Regan and I wrote about my dad to go inside of our gift to him. If he ever gets published, I imagine this could be his "about the author"  blurb: 

    Gregory Lee Romans, the pride of Arnold Nebraska, has had a life-long love for books— especially action-thriller novels, children’s books, or books that hold contraband. Always a voracious reader, Greg claims that in his youth he read every book in the Arnold Library.

    Before moving on to bigger cities, with bigger libraries, Greg attended Arnold High, where he excelled on the football field as both a star running back and lead trumpet player in the marching band—often during the same game.  He graduated first in his class (of 29, but who’s counting).

    Greg later attended Brigham Young University and served an LDS mission in the then-Eastern States Mission, serving throughout Pennsylvania and Virginia.  After graduating from BYU with a degree in Political Science, he met his wife Suzanne “Whitefish” Romans, an original valley girl tamed in the wild mid-west.  Greg later received an MBA from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

    Greg has lived all over the United States: Nebraska, Utah, Illinois, Alabama, and he currently resides in Richmond, Virginia.  No matter where he roams, one thing remains the same: Greg is the reddest of Republicans (and Corn Husker fans).

     Greg is the father of five wonderful children, none of which have seen him without a mustache, to this day.  He enjoys foreign films, solitaire, meatloaf, political cartoons, and playing the stock market.  A man of many talents, Greg has a knack for building and inventing, piano playing, and crossword puzzling.  But perhaps he is most famous for his mastery of the sourdough pancake.

    The original bargainist, Greg, never settled for less when it came to kindness or creativity.  For that, he is loved and admired by all, but none more than his wife, children, and grandchildren.

Today is my dad's birthday!

Happy Birthday to my favorite mustached man.

In an effort the get my dad something other than sweat-socks (the go to gift) I thought I would do a handmade gift this year... but I'm not going to see my dad until tomorrow so I won't post my gift just yet. And FYI dad, no you are not getting homemade sweat socks. : )

My dad is awesome. Everyone who ever meets him loves him and thinks very highly of him. He is smart, witty, kind, creative, hard working, and very generous. And maybe a little bit quirky- but in a way that just makes me smile/laugh when I think about it.

My favorite memories of my dad include:

1. Letting my drive his car around the Godwin Parking lot when I was 14-I was so so excited when I got up to 20 mph!
2. Taking me to rollerskate around Raintree lake in elementary school
3. Teaching me to use my magic square (you know, the square on the backboard) and going to all of my church bball games.
4. Playing skip bo and checkers until I would win.
5. Waking up in the middle of the night to help me pick up my new kitty that I had let out of the box but was afraid of
6. IMing me when I was lonely/homesick my freshman year at BYU

If you know my dad, or even if you don't, wish him a happy b-day today!
[And check back tomorrow for the rest of the juicy details on my dad.]

Sunday Will Come

I shared the video with the kids in Senior Primary today and I loved it so much that I thought that I would post it here as well.

My lesson was on the Resurrection of Jesus and it went surprisingly well today. (MUCH better than when I taught a few weeks ago.)

Enjoy!

And now, Regan and I are off to make these  for a family he home teaches that recently had a baby. Here's a picture in case you don't like to click on links :)

bucket list

It only took me 14 months to find, order, and a pickup... but I finally have some buckets to go along with my gamma lids. 

 Let the food storage begin!

NYC- help!

Regan and I are using some left over delta vouchers to head to NYC in a couple of weeks. 

It has been years since either of us have been so I'm looking for suggestions. 

Any tips? (Places to go, things to see, food to eat?)

happy valentines day to me!!

I'm not really sure how you say it better than that...

Last night I had to work late (bummer) but had a surprise when I got home! Regan whipped up some batter to make some Valentine fortune cookies. Unfortunately, they were much harder than we expected. Like, we failed three batches in a row. Such a fun idea but not so easy to implement. So we gave up, cooked the rest of the batter into one huge fortune pancake, and watched 30 Rock. I love Thursdays. 

Too bad no one is going to get Regan's "Hearts will be broken" fortune. 

Have I mentioned that I'm married to a moon shooter?

a little update

I've been oh so neglectful of this dear blog. I'd like to blame it on the fact that I've been so busy... but we all know that would be a stretch. Mostly, I haven't really felt like I have had a whole lot to update you all on. You can only post "We went to Costco again last night" so many times before it starts to get embarrassing. Right, Clayton? (hahaha...I'm so funny.) But, enough time has passed that perhaps I can manage to scrounge up some sort of post.  That doesn't sound very promising now does it? This little blog of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. Let's go WAY back...

December.

After Regan finished acing his exams, we flew to Utah for Christmas... hoping the whole time we might get bumped again like last year (not to delay our arrival of course, but because I like to fly for free.) Despite my best attempts at sweet talking/stalking that Delta staff, none of our flights were oversold. Imagine that.

We had such a fun time hanging out with Regan's family and we even got to see some of my Utah clan while we were there (extended family on my dad's side,  Jordan Romans family, and of course Chrissi-who I still always refer to as "my roommate".)  I loved getting to see all of our cute cute cute nieces and nephews. We even got to finally meet Jessica and Jon's little baby, Parker. (See him playing the role of baby Jesus in our nativity below.) We had so much fun playing games. Ticket to ride, hearts (of course), mafia, etc. We went sledding, we ate way too much, oh and I definitely broke Ann's needle on her serger. Oops. I may or may not have woken Regan up to tell him and then started giggling uncontrollably when he made a joke which turned into random crying and then laughing again. I will neither confirm or deny. Did I mention that we were staying up really late to play hearts? Yes, I sew like a five year old but Ann was so so kind and patient with me while I worked on some Christmas gifts for my brother's family.

Left to Right: Jon, Parker, Jessica, Tori, Elsie, Alyssa, Kale, Me, Livvie, and Ben- the musically inclined roving donkey :) which of course was the best part in my opinion. Besides Jessica pulling Parker out of her wrap under her rob at the perfect cue. That still makes me chuckle.

And the whole family with the annual basement couch shot. 

Some day maybe I'll make a flip book of these.

Regan will be happy that we have documentation of him opening up a blanket from Kami.  

(As I have since claimed it as my own and started calling it MY warm fleece blanket.) 

Thanks, Kami... I sleep with it every night.

We made it back to Richmond just in time to get to go to Maggiano's with my family. We flew in to Raleigh, NC at midnight, drove in some sketchy weather, stopped to see my dad at work and then went right to sleep in a NEW mattress that my parents got for my old room. My mom was even awake at 4 am to greet us. Is anyone surprised? [wink] 

Between staying up so late in UT and driving all night we almost didn't make it to our 11:30 lunch appointment with my family. My dad called to me upstairs at 11am to ask if we were about ready and I had some sort of panicked flashback to high school and over-sleeping. I yelled back, "YEP!" and have never gotten ready so fast (shower, blow dry, makeup and all!) Our Richmond leg of the trip was short and sweet (yet, we still found time to go to Ukrops and we even met my cute friend Rach and her husband there) and left me dreading going back to real life. 

January. 

In January I started serving in the Primary as the Second Counselor which has been a lot of fun and has helped me to stretch myself in ways I didn't anticipate. I'm much busier but I'm grateful for the experience. And every week something in Jr. Primary has me cracking up. Oh, and I've got lots to learn when if comes to Jr. Primary sharing time. Tips? Anyone?

We've had a little bit of snow this year which has been awesome. I get paid on snow days so of course, I'm praying for snow and then more snow. (But, I guess I just must not be as righteous as whoever is praying for snow up in DC...) On top of missing church and a few church meetings, I went in to work late three days in a row and then had one full day off. Unfortunately, now that I think about it I realize that I used very little of all that time to do anything productive. Hmm....

Because, with all of this being trapped at home business, we have had lots of time to perfect our pizza making skills. Seriously guys, Regan is becoming quite the sauce maker and "pizza artist". However, word to the wise, he doesn't really like it when I say, "SAUCEY!" We've watched a ton of movies and played lots of scrabble. Do you feel sad for us? No really, I realize that it doesn't sound like our lives are very exciting and you're thinking, "Scrabble? Really?" But, we've been fortunate to get to spend lots of time together  so far this semester and have only gotten a little sick of each other :) And I beat Regan at least twice. So there.

Despite the usual worries and stress, 2010 has been good to us so far. 3L year is quickly becoming my favorite so far and I am optimistic that life after law school will in fact be a reality before we know it. Here's to hoping that it is less stressful :)

Sacrifice (and another reason to love serving in Primary)

While teaching a lesson at a primary activity last week I asked the children what they could do to show Heavenly Father that they love Him. One of the Sunbeams raised her hand excitedly and when I called on her she said, "We can sacrifice!"

Clearly, I was blown away by this response. So, mimicking her enthusiasm I said,
"That's great! And what can we sacrifice?"

Her response, "Our bodies!"

(I'm still not sure how I got through the rest of the lesson. )

"I like pie"... AKA, my foray into instructional cooking

I have a boy in my primary class who says "I like Pie" in a funny voice at some point of Sunday School every single week. Apparently, other kids in our primary say it too. I don't really get it but he's a cute kid so it just makes me laugh. (But have I mentioned that I've been teaching him since January? And that this part of our conversation every week?) I swear, I can't think or talk about pie without quoting "I like pie!" But I guess what? I do like pie!

So anyway, that was just a long winded introduction to what we've been up to.

Tonight Regan and I attempted our first homemade apple pie- a caramel apple with a lattice top.

It looks so so beautiful. We can't wait for the fruit of our labors. (Ha!)

We used a Real Simple pie crust recipe from the November issue (found here) and adapted this apple pie recipe (from Our Best Bites) by adding the caramel, which was really Regan's brainchild.

(fyi, I LOVE everything on Our Best Bites . Everything.)

We were so excited about this pie that I even took some video footage. (It is very short- I also made 3 doz rolls and at this point I was only about halfway done making them at nearly 11pm.) I really think we are ready for our own cooking show, don't you? Watch out Paula and Giada!

On the first video at around 4 seconds I start to get really excited but then I reign it in really quickly. Can you hear it in my voice? The second video is pretty much the same thing but it makes me laugh that Regan doesn't talk. Maybe next time I'll actually record something exciting. Like Regan actually saying something perhaps! (But don't count on it).

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!