We're here...

Here is why I love Madelyn. We finally get to our seats in the airplane and Madelyn is the first to sit down. She turns to me before I've had a chance to sit and says, "Would you like aisle or wall?" I laughed super hard... for some reason our plane on the way to SLC didn't have windows in half the seats. It was also a weird plane... we bought the tickets from U.S. Airways, but as soon as we boarded the windowless plane we realized everything inside said "America West Airlines", but the flight attendants kept telling us, "thanks for flying with Mesa Airlines". I don't have any idea who the heck got us to Utah... but we're here! So please give us a call or shoot us an email if you want to hang out. We will be here for the next 9 days.

(Madelyn on our windowless aisle)

A special thanks for our housitter Lorena for coming through big time! Rocky and Sugar are having the time of their lives hanging out with her...

Congratulations Sugar!

A few blogs ago we asked everyone to vote for our dogs in Austin's cutest dog competition, and we'd would like to say that all your votes paid off!

Sugar is the winner!

She wins $100 to a online pet store called Olive. The big question now is whether shes going to share her winnings with her brother. Check out the store... they have cool stuff. http://olivegreendog.com/

We don't know exactly how this has happened, because every time we looked at the contest it looked like Rocky was in the lead, but somehow Sugar pulled off the victory! I think some people were voting Rocky low so that their dogs would go higher... but their dirty tricks didn't work... no one seemed to notice little Sugar gaining votes.

Thanks everyone for helping out with the voting!

Holiday Spirit

This holiday season I am feeling especially blessed and grateful and I thought that I would share some of my thoughts with all of you. I'll just tell you right now, this will not be funny or entertaining at all and it will be filled with cheesy sap if you want to just skip this post...

The holiday spirit has hit me really hard this year and ever since Thanksgiving I have been on this cloud of gratitude realizing how incredibly fortunate I am. Two years ago Cody and I took a big risk, picked up everything and moved half-way across the country. We left our jobs, our families, our friends, our adorable little apartment on Capital Hill, and our comfort zone for a new adventure together. I'll admit that it was hard at first and I think we both had moments where we thought we had made a mistake. It took us far longer than we had realized to find jobs and a place to live and get on our feet. Luckily, Cody's mom and Kevin were incredibly hospitable and generous and offered us food and shelter for much longer than any of us anticipated. I feel like after two years, a bad allergic reaction of head to toe hives for weeks (for me), several terrible jobs (me), unemployment (again for me), a car wreck (mine also), we are finally back on our feet and better than ever. I guess I am the one who has had a trying two years! Luckily I have an amazing husband who has been my rock, my support, my best friend, my provider, my entertainer, my housekeeper, my dog-walker, my event planner, my therapist, my employment service, my handyman, and my partner. He amazes me more and more every day and I am extremely grateful for him.

This year we have been blessed with so much, like our comfortable house where we can gather friends and offer out of town guests a place to stay, stable (so far) jobs, supportive and loving families, awesome friends, great neighbors, and two adorable puppies! Just a few other things I am grateful for are two reliable automobiles that can get us safely from point A to point B; heat in our home and sweaters and coats during this time of year and air conditioning in the summer; a new dishwasher that actually gets the dishes clean!; and a new fridge full of food that keeps things from spoiling.

I am I am so excited to be heading back to Salt Lake after over a year where Cody and I will be able to see friends and family that have been very missed. We'll see all of you Salt Lake folk in less than a week!

Christmas Party

This weekend our friends Tobi and Jessica hosted the coolest Christmas Party ever. The theme was "Ugly Sweaters", so Madelyn and I made a special trip to Savers to make sure to get the perfect sweater. It was a hilarious evening...

We had a White Elephant where such gifts as a Destiny's Child framed poster, Olivia Newton John's "Let's get Physical" cassette tape, coloring books, and old cookbooks were given. I think we could all agree that the best part of the evening was when Jonathan busted out gifts for EVERYONE.... we all got gift cards to Torchy's Taco's.... the best tacos you've ever tasted. I think he's everyone's best friend today.

Somewhere along the line someone started taking pictures of people in their sweaters in cheesy poses... and eventually we were all getting into it. These are some of the funniest pictures I've seen....

This is me and Madelyn in our sweaters. Madelyn got bonus points for not only finding an ugly sweater, but hers was also Christmas themed.

This is Jonathan and Jarret showing off their sweaters in a wonderful pose they were placed in.

Here is me and Jonathan's Christmas card. Tobi even added some special effects on the picture to give it a little something extra...

Madelyn and Lorena look like two teachers at a holiday party.

Here are the ladyies sporting their amazing sweaters...

This pose was my creation... and this picture will haunt all three of us for the rest of our lives.

Of course there was a ugly sweater contest. Madelyn, Lorena and I all had to participate in a "walk-off". Here I am sporting the tucked in sweater look.

And here's Madelyn sporting her sweater. She clinched the win by showing the crowd her shoulder pads.

Here is Madelyn in celebration of her win...

Here is Madelyn accepting her trophy from the one of the Christmas party committee members...

And here is the trophy in its rightful place on our mantel.

Remember Thanksgiving?

Yes, we are way behind on our blogging duties.... but both of us are in class and at work all the time. Oh yeah, that's another blog topic, our return to studying and classes. I'm sure I'll get around to blogging about that at some point...

Since we're almost at Christmas I better blog about my parents' visit for Thanksgiving! Yes, the Roberts' came down to Austin for Thanksgiving... and we had a great time.

Madelyn was nice enough to cook a Thanksgiving dinner for the whole fam, so as soon as we walked in the door we all got to eat.... and we continued this theme throughout the trip. My dad said that he only wanted BBQ and Mexican food. We all laughed, but three days into the trip we all realized he was completely serious. I gained 5 pounds over the weekend.

Besides eating, we also went to Elgin to cut down a tree, we went to the Alamo Drafthouse (of course), shopped at the Dallas Cowboys store, hung Christmas lights, decorated the house, and my grandparents came down for a day and brought my cousins down with them. It was nice to have the whole family in our new house. We definitely broke it in.

Here we are hanging Christmas lights (more pictures here). Like our friend Jessica said, "I love how hanging Christmas lights in Texas can be done while wearing t-shirts and shorts"

Here we are in Elgin (a beautiful drive) to cut down our Christmas tree.

Jackson really wanted to cut it down, but after one try at the saw he had gotten his fix. It's not easy!

We weren't really prepared for the weather.... it was warm when we left the house, but for some reason Elgin was freezing (not literally)! Oh well, if you aren't cold while cutting down your tree then you aren't truly in the Christmas spirit.

Of course, there is no trip to the Roberts house without playing Rockband. The whole family played... Jackson loved to sing, even if had never heard the song, and my dad seemed content with the bass.

Here's my dad "rocking" out:

After Thanksgiving dishes my parents realized the state of our old dishwasher... so they told us they would help buy us a new one for Christmas! We ran out of time to pick one out together, but Madelyn and I picked one up last weekend and installed it.... ourselves. Besides one minor near electrocution I was able to get it installed. Since my only major home improvement project has been painting or installing a ceiling fan I'm pretty proud that it's installed and working! I can add "dishwasher installation" to my resume.

It was a great trip and we're really happy that everyone came down. We had a GREAT time.

I don't think this poll is very scientific....

We were watching Monday Night Football tonight and this poll came up on the screen... for some reason it made us laugh really hard.

Poll: Will the Dallas Cowboys make the playoffs?

Why I Love...My Husband

This morning after Cody let the dogs out in the backyard he noticed that Sugar was chewing on the grill cover...again! He was so angry that he stormed out into the back yard and slammed the door behind him giving Sugar a stern talking to. After he calmed down he tried to go back in the house only to find that the back door had locked behind him. So, he had to make a dash around the house and to the front door -- in his underwear. The best part of the story is that he didn't want to draw attention to himself by running, so he tried to play it cool by acting like he meant to get locked out in the backyard in his underwear. I wish I could have seen it, but I was already at work.

December Crazy dog post....

I entered our two dogs in a "cutest dog" contest... Please vote for them!

Vote for Sugar

Vote for Rocky


Thanks!

Misty...

Today at work my iPod started playing "Misty" by Ella Fitzgerald. In my opinion, the best female voice in music history. This song is special because Madelyn and I picked it as the song for our first dance at out wedding. This is song was the jumping off point of our life together...

It just made me feel good... thought everyone would enjoy it.

Christmas is coming!

More pictures of our Christmas decorations! Here is our awesome tree we cut down today....

It looks great!

Christmas is around the corner!

My parents are in town and today we hung up our Christmas lights....

They look awesome!

More pictures of the indoor decorations and my parents visit coming soon! Just thought this would get people into the holiday spirit.

(my dad and Jackson helping me hang up lights)

12-0

Saturday night Madelyn and I cheered our Utes to another undefeated season and another trip to a BCS bowl. Since the game was on the MTN network, we had to go watch it at a sports bar.... we were the only Utah fans in the place! We were outnumbered by a large group of BYU fans. We're eager to find out which bowl they'll be going to.....

Utah Utes... busting the BCS again! Number 6 in the country!



The icing on the cake? We creamed BYU.... ;-) 48-24

New blog..

Lately we've been having an itch to post all sorts of blogs... but since this is more of a "what we're up to" type blog we decided to create another blog full of things we find or funny stories we want to share.

Come and check it out:

http://mandcstuff.blogspot.com/

House things...

When we moved into our house and decided to make the extra bedroom a "Project" room Madelyn had the idea of hanging a crystal/fancy chandelier. Well, a couple weeks ago Madelyn found the one she wanted and since I'm an expert on hanging light fixtures now, we hung it up. We think it looks great! Anyway, here are some pictures for those of you only able to get the verbal explanation over the phone...

One of the strange things about living here after living in Utah is that is doesn't really get that cold. But lately it's been dropping down to the.... 30's! One thing we didn't know is that when it gets near freezing you have to protect your plants, the people here cover their bushes and plants with old bed sheets. Our awesome neighbors let us borrow some of their old sheets. This is common place in Texas, but I had to take a picture for out Utah friends/family. The weather here has been nuts, last night it was 30 degrees and this afternoon it was 80! Making fires at night and opening the windows in the afternoon.

The other thing we've been loving lately is the "green space" across the street from our house. Our neighborhood has this great open area that maintained by our HOA.... the dogs LOVE it. As soon as we get there they just run and run! Anyway, here are some pictures:

(The dogs are way in the background)

Birthday Week.

Sorry we've been neglecting our blog... but we've been busy with our week long birthday extravaganza. My birthday celebrations started last Saturday and ended last night! It was definitely a crazy week. It started when my mom invited us over for dinner last Saturday night for one of my favorite meals and Kevin even made me a home made chocolate cream pie. The best part was that there were tons of balloons greeting me at the front door. Each one of them had a little message....

Sunday night we invited our friends over for a game night. This wasn't really birthday related, but it was still apart of the birthday week. Some people couldn't make it to the game night, so it ended up being Cody and the girls. We started the night with some Scattegories, but none of us could come up with any words... you can see the frustration in this picture:

After Scategories we moved on to Taboo. Our friend Heidi started the game saying "I don't really know how to play", but when it came to her turn she dominated. We got hustled in Taboo... big time.

The game night was such a success that we planned another one for Tuesday night. We had a game fever... and the only prescription was Scrabble. Tuesday happened to be my actual birthday (Madelyn had class that night) so our Scrabble party kind of turned into a birthday celebration. Lorena made me a cake and everyone let me win.... Madelyn came over after her class and we blew out the candles.

Wednesday night Madelyn took me out to dinner for my birthday since she was in class the night before. We stuffed ourselves with delicious Mexican food and came home and watched some of my favorite TV shows. For some reason we also stopped taking pictures.

Friday night was just going to be a normal night, we were at DSW looking for shoes. I went in, looked around for a bout 30 seconds, and I was done, Madelyn found some 2 dollar shoes but there was some sort of problem with the barcode, so the lady took like 10 minutes in the back trying to figure it out. Then, when we got in the car Madelyn asked if she could drive... which was weird. Then she started driving in the opposite direction of our supposed next stop telling me she knew somewhere that had cheap gas (although I had half a tank). So we drove and drove looking for this gas, we filled up, and then she drove me to one of my favorite restaurants. When we walked in all of our friends were sitting at a table! Come to find out that Madelyn underestimated the time it takes men to check out a shoe store, she asked the cashier if she could stall, then she drove all over to buy some time. I had no idea.... but it was a great surprise.

After dinner we came back to our place for some Rockband! Again, I didn't take pictures at dinner or of Rockband, but I did get a picture of Jessica and Rocky. We were all busy rocking out when I started noticing I didn't see Jessica, I finally found her lying behind our desk giving Rocky some serious pets. Rocky was just lying in her lap, staring into her eyes. Jessica is definitely Rocky's favorite person who comes over. They have a very special bond.

Last night the birthday celebration finally ended with going to the Alamo Drafthouse to see Quantom of Solace. It was the perfect end to my crazy birthday weekend extravaganza! Thanks to everyone who sent gifts, called, made food, and celebrated with me. It was by far one of the most memorable birthdays I've had!

Happy Birthday Cody!

Today is Cody's birthday and I wanted to honor him today by exposing embarrassing things about him on the internet, and telling everyone who visits this blog what an amazing person Cody is.

Cody is the most hilarious person I know. He is fun and adventurous and always makes sure that everyone is having a good time. He is very passionate and can't wait to share new finds with everyone he knows. He is the most thoughtful, caring, selfless person. He is also smart, hard-working, diligent, handy, entertaining, resourceful, supportive, responsible, dependable, helpful, loving, sensitive, a good listener, and the best looking thing I have ever seen. I hope you have a fantastic day today, Cody, you deserve it!

Our November crazy dog post

I've been spending the afternoon at home today while I wait for the cable man... So I took out the camera and decided to play with taking black and white pictures. Of course, who else would I try this new feature on except our two dogs?

I really need to get my dog portrait business off the ground!